


From One Fucked Up Person to Another

by QuantumFeat72



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Abuse, Canon Compliant, Gen, Handplates, Minor Original Character(s), Non-Binary Chara, Non-Binary Frisk, Physical Abuse, Sharing a Body, Spoilers - Undertale Genocide Route, Spoilers - Undertale Pacifist Route, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2017-01-28
Packaged: 2018-09-01 18:43:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 41,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8633893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuantumFeat72/pseuds/QuantumFeat72
Summary: "Just because someone is responsible for your existence doesn’t automatically make them a good person.As it turns out, you’re not the only one who learned that the hard way."
Sans and Chara deal with some things.





	1. Eavesdropping is Awfully Rude, You Know

**Author's Note:**

> Another fic based off of handplates! (zarla-s.tumblr.com)  
> Chapters alternate perspective, so keep an eye on the name in [brackets] so you know who you are.  
> Please let me know what you think! Concrit is welcome - I am doing this to get better - but bear in mind that this fic is 100% written, and being posted as I get the ok from my editor/beta.  
> (Hi Mom!)
> 
> (Also, this was written as handplates was coming out, so I tried to stay true to the au but there are parts where it does directly contradict.)

[Chara]

* * *

 

You’re playing with Asriel in the golden hallway when they arrive.  Two skeletons, dressed in hospital gowns, looking around the way you were when you first came to the underground: terrified and fascinated and completely struck by the beauty of it all.  Alphys is with them, looking about as nervous as she always does when she’s about to talk to your dad.

“Howdy, Alphys!”  Asriel calls, running towards them.  You follow at a more cautious pace.  (Something about that shorter skeleton bothers you.)

“Oh,” says Alphys, “Hello, Asriel.”

“Are you new here?” you ask the skeletons, even though that question makes no sense.

“uh, yeah.” the shorter one holds out a hand to shake yours, “i’m Sans, and this is my brother Papyrus.”

“Nice to meet you,” you say, accepting his hand with a smile, “You must be looking for Asriel’s dad, then.” you turn to Alphys, “He’s in the garden right now.”

Alphys looks at you, confused, before going in the direction you pointed.  The skeletons follow her and you follow them a few paces behind, Asriel next to you.

“so, what’s _your_ name?” asks Sans, turning to look at you.

“Chara,” you reply.  Asriel tugs at your sleeve.

_“Why are we following them?”_ he whispers.

_“Aren’t you curious?”_ you whisper back.

_“Yeah, but...”_

_“Come on,”_ you put an arm around his shoulder, _“It won’t hurt to ask.”_

* * *

You can barely hear their voices through the doorway.  Asriel’s gone - he retreated to your room saying that eavesdropping is rude and you shouldn’t do it, but you know he’ll gladly listen when you tell him what you’ve heard.

Wing Din Gaster is dead, you hear.  He had been performing cruel experiments on the skeletons, and they had fought back today, and now he’s dead.  Alphys tells your dad that he fell into one of his machines while it was on, during the fight.  He believes her, but Alphys was always a terrible liar.  He didn’t just fall.

“How long have you two been down there?” asks your dad.

There’s a moment of silence before Sans answers, “as long as we can remember.”

“I’m s-sorry,” says Alphys, starting to tear up, “I should h-have said something s-sooner.  I knew something was w-wrong, I should have...” if she speaks after that, you don’t hear it.

You remember Gaster.  He was the royal scientist, a man your dad trusted completely that you were always creeped out by.  You had once learned a little sign language so you could eavesdrop on his conversations, but soon decided it wasn’t worth it.  You wonder if this means you were wrong.

* * *

When you see Sans again he’s playing target practice on one of the dummies.  It’s been a few days and he and his brother have actual clothes now.  You have to admit you’re impressed at his accuracy.  You hadn’t taken him for the fighting type.

You walk up behind him.  “Having fun?”

He turns around quickly, startled.  You notice one of his eyes is glowing, and the other is missing its weird white pupil.  He relaxes when he sees you and  turns around again.  “it’s rude to sneak up on people.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” you say, stepping closer.  “Mind if I join you?”

“why not.” he says, and though his smile doesn’t fade any, he sounds unimpressed.  He summons some of his bones and sends them toward the dummy, and since they’re all blue attacks, they do nothing.

“Wanna spar?” you ask, not really expecting an answer.

“no thanks,” he says, “i only have one hp, so-”

You cut him off, “Seriously?”

“yeah,” he says, openly pissed now (even though that smile is still on), “so, no.  i don’t want to spar.”

“How about this,” you say, digging through the tiny armory next to the dummy until you find what you’re looking for.  “I’ll use this magically padded knife.  It can’t deal any damage.”

“really?” he says, raising an eyebrow and not going near you.

“Yeah.” he doesn’t look convinced.  “Here, I’ll prove it.”  You lay your arm across the nearest flat surface and bring the knife down on it with enough force it should at least cut through the skin, and walk over to show Sans.  “See? no damage.  Dad got this made so I could spar with Asriel, but he’s never interested.”

“no kidding,” says Sans, taking the knife from you and tapping it cautiously against his arm.  “i might hurt you by accident, though.”

“I’m more resilient than I look,” you tell him, taking the knife back.  “It takes more than a couple bones to bring _me_ down.”

“is that a challenge?” he says, and you think you see his smile widen.

* * *

You can tell Sans is going easy on you, but you don’t really mind.  His attacks are still the hardest things you’ve ever dodged.  You make a mental note to never piss him off.  He can also dodge better than any monster you’ve ever met - even your dad can’t usually dodge your attacks, but Sans sidesteps out of the way like it’s easy.  You’ve been fighting for ten minutes and neither of you have landed a single blow.

Neither of you can keep it up much longer, though.  You can see sweat beading on his skull.  How does that even work?  You decide not to ask.

“You’re pretty good,” you tell him, determined not to let him know how much trouble you’re having, “Where’d you learn to fight like that?”

It isn’t a real question - you heard his life story through the door - but you’re curious how much he’d actually be okay with you knowing.  “my brother and i learned together.”

“Did Gaster teach you?” you ask, and that one _is_ a real question.  It throws him off and you use the opportunity to attack.  He dodges with just as much ease as before.

“what makes you say that?” he throws a half-assed attack at you and you dodge easily, a little frustrated that your curiosity is ruining the challenge.

“He’s the only other person I know with blue attacks,” you say, gesturing toward your colored soul, “I’ve never had the privilege of fighting him, but I hear he’s pretty powerful.”

He doesn’t say anything for a second, and you attack again, wondering if you’re pushing too far.  “no,” he says when he dodges, “he didn’t teach us.”

Well that’s vague.  You decide you won’t get anywhere by pushing and lapse back into silence as you dodge his next attack.

After that, he’s distracted as well as tired and it doesn’t take long for you to land a blow on him.  The fake knife can’t deal damage, but it cuts his loose T-shirt and scrapes against his ribs.  You step back, satisfied, smiling, and see something that isn’t quite right.

Sans is bleeding.

You look at the knife, covered in blood, you look back at Sans and feel the color draining from your face.  Your soul returns to its natural red hue and you drop the knife as you step back.

_Your father sees the body and screams, dropping his mug on the wood floor.  You pull the dagger from her chest and turn toward him.  You can’t fight back the smile that crosses your lips._

You cover your mouth.  Your eyes and cheeks feel wet.  Sans touches the red that leaks from his ribcage and looks at his hand.

_The blood covers the floor.  It covers everything.  The handle of the knife is slick and you almost lose your grip on it but it finds its mark._

You fall to your knees and try to push the memory out.  Your knife - the real one - is strapped to your hip, where it always has been.  You reach for it out if instinct and hear Sans come towards you.

_It takes him a long time to bleed to death.  It smells like blood._

“kid, it’s alright.”  You snap your head up to look at Sans.  He’s holding his hands in front of him.  “it’s just ketchup,” he says, “it’s fine, see?”

You take a deep breath through your nose.  It smells like sweat.  You pull the dagger from your side and inspect the edge.  It’s clean.  You breathe out through your mouth.

“That’s right,” you say, when you can speak again, “monsters... don’t bleed.”

“...huh?” he says, and you realize after a long moment that he probably doesn’t even know you’re human yet.  You can’t help the laugh that escapes your lips.  He must’ve been so confused.  Still is, probably.

“You see,” you tell him, falling into a more comfortable sitting position, “While monsters are made mostly of magic, humans are made mostly of water.  So we have this outer layer of skin to keep all the water in.” you roll up your sleeve and take a ball of skin between your fingers to show him, “If it breaks,” you bring the knife to your arm and make a small cut, squeezing the blood out, “this gross red stuff comes out.  It’s called blood.  We can replenish a lot of it, but if we lose enough at a time, we die.”  You wipe the blood away with the inside of your sleeve and roll it back up.

“...huh.” says Sans when he realizes that’s all you’re going to say, “so, you thought I was dying.”

“Yeah.” you reply.

He sits down next to you and is silent for a long moment.  “you weren’t kidding about that knife,” he says, “it didn’t even hurt.”

“...Good.” you say, still running your fingers over the real one.

“so,” he says, not hiding how awkward he feels, “is that how you introduce yourself to everyone? by asking to fight, i mean.”

You can’t help but laugh at that.  “Knife to meet you.” you say, holding up the knife and flashing a grin.

It takes him a second, but he laughs.  Actually laughs, like it’s the best joke he’s ever heard.  You take a second to be surprised before laughing with him.

* * *

You’ve never thought Alphys was worth eavesdropping on before, but now that she’s brought two mysterious skeletons to the castle and been present at the death of the royal scientist, you decide to plant a wire in her lab.  Going over the recording later provides you with about twenty hours worth of terrible anime, and at least a hundred of dead silence.  You guess she doesn’t talk to herself when she works.

You’ve almost given up when you hear Sans’ voice in the recording.

“any luck?”

“No,” says Alphys, “I still haven’t figured out this code of his.”  You think you know what she means, Gaster always encoded his notes.

“oh, that? it’s just a cipher.  here, I’ll write out a key for you.”  You hear paper shuffling and Sans writing something in pencil.

“Are you sure you don’t mind me using these notes?” says Alphys, sounding uncomfortable.

“i meant what i said,” Sans doesn’t stop writing, “if there’s any use to be had from what he did, i don’t want it to go to waste.”

So Alphys is going over Gaster’s notes... with Sans’ blessing.  That’s not the weirdest thing you’ve heard, but it surprises you a little.

Sans finishes writing and you hear paper move again.  “here you go.”

“Thanks.”

You fast forward through a little more silence until you hear Sans’ voice again.

“do you want me to read it out loud to you?”

You hope so.

“You... wouldn’t mind?” says Alphys.

“not at all” You think Sans is picking up one of the papers.  “this stuff is pretty easy for me.”

“Hang on,” says Alphys, shuffling papers, “I’ll write it down as you go, so I can go over it later.”

“‘kay.” he says, and after a moment Alphys gives him the OK to start.  “here we go.”

He coughs once and changes his voice a bit to mimic Gaster’s.  “Entry number thirty-one.  Where is the line between human and monster?  It’s a question so meaningless as to border on the philosophical, and yet it dictates so much about a person’s way of life.  A human is solid and built of water and determination, providing them resilience surpassing that of even the strongest monster.  A monster’s form is defined by their soul, allowing them to express themselves through magic.  But where is the line?  Could a monster in possession of a human soul, with all the strength of a human and all the magical ability of a monster, truly be said to be either?  Could S-1 and P-2 - uh, that’s what he called us.”

“Oh, I see.” says Alphys

“Could S-1 and P-2, made...”  Sans stops for a moment, sounding uncomfortable, before continuing in a forced tone.  “made artificially from the bodies of dead humans and parts of my own soul, be called one or the other?”

“What?” Alphys interrupts.

“i dunno.” says Sans, “he never said anything about that.  he didn’t say much of anything at all.  not that i would’ve listened.  maybe Papyrus would know something...”  You hear papers shuffling.  “i’ll just keep reading for now.”

“Okay.”

“When they die, will they turn to dust like monsters, or remain solid like humans?  Will their bones simply return to the state they were in before, as though they had only harbored one soul apiece?  Perhaps at this experiment’s conclusion, I will find out.”

Sans pauses.  “maybe we should stop for now.” he says.

“O-oh.  Sure, this... this must be hard for you.” says Alphys.

“it’s not that.” says Sans.  “i’m fine.  but there are at least two people eavesdropping on us right now, so i don’t really want to read the rest out loud.”

Shit.

“What?”

Wait, two people?

“I’M SORRY”

Oh god it’s Papyrus.

“chill, bro,” says Sans, “it’s ok, i knew you were there.”

Papyrus says something else and you don’t listen to it because you don’t care, until he stops himself mid-word.  “WAIT,” he says, “TWO PEOPLE?”

“yeah,” says Sans, and you hear something tap against the recorder.  “found this under your desk, alphys.”  ...You do have to admit that it wasn’t very well-hidden.

“WHAT IS IT?”

“dunno what it’s called,” Sans sounds surprisingly nonchalant, “but it’s recording everything we say.”

Wait, if they found it, why was it in the same place when you went back to go over the footage?

“WHY?”

“i think the more important question is who put it here,” says Sans, “any ideas, Alphys?”

“...No.” says Alphys, “But I can find out.”

* * *

You’re in the garden with Asriel after a very stern talking-to from your mom (accompanied by a very disappointed look from your dad) when Sans seems to appear out of nowhere.

“so,” he says when you don’t look up, “what’cha doing?”

“We’re coloring,” says Asriel, not picking up on how tense Sans’ voice is, “do you wanna join?  We have plenty of crayons.”

Sans sits down next to you, “no thanks.”  He waits for you to say something, but you don’t, instead adding a generous amount of red to your drawing.  “so, chara,” he says.

“Hm?”

“can i ask you something?”

You don’t look up.  “What?”

He hesitates before actually saying it.  Asriel stops coloring.  You don’t look up.  “why’d you do it?”

You have to force yourself not to laugh.  “Isn’t it obvious?”  This time you look up.  Sans looks confused.  Asriel looks uncomfortable.  “I’m pretty good at telling when people lie,” you explain, “and Alphys isn’t very good at lying.  I knew something was up the moment I saw you in the golden hallway, and I wanted to find out what.”

“you could have asked.” says Sans.

“Asked who?  She lied to my dad.  No one lies to Dad unless it’s either really big or really small, and this isn’t any _little_ thing.”

“you could’ve asked me.”

You look back at your drawing.  “You’ve already lied to me once.”

He laughs.  “when?”

You pause and take a deep breath.  “I know what ketchup _smells_ like, Sans.”

After a long moment, Asriel stands up, says “I’m going to show this to mom,” and runs off.

Sans says nothing.

“It wasn’t blood,” you say, because you also know what blood smells like, “but it wasn’t ketchup either.  Why did you lie?  What was it, really?”

He sighs.  “i don’t know.”

It’s hard to tell, but you’re pretty sure he’s telling the truth.  “Did it hurt?” you ask, and your voice comes out quieter than it should have.

“no,” he says, “that’s the worst part.  it tore a hole in one of my ribs, but it didn’t hurt, and it didn’t deal damage.  i don’t know _what_ happened.”

Neither of you say anything for a long time after that.  You believe him, but it still doesn’t make sense.  What the hell kind of monster bleeds?  You remember that that isn’t even the question you wanted answered when you planted that wire in Alphys’ lab.  Now probably isn’t the best time for it but you don’t know when you’ll get another chance and hell if you’ll let it go unasked so you put down your crayon and sit up.

“Did you kill him?”

Sans just looks at you.

“Alphys is a shit liar.  He didn’t just fall.  What happened?  Did you kill him?”

“what makes you think that?” he says, but he’s nervous.  You’re right.  You take your dagger from your waist and place it next to your drawing.

“Takes one to know one, I guess.”


	2. Once Upon a Time, About a Week Ago

[Sans]

* * *

It’s been a couple hours since Gaster went home for the night. You and Papyrus are trying to entertain yourselves in your cell. (Papyrus has the color cube - you don’t know how he never gets bored with it.) This is around the time you’d be talking, if there were anything to say, but there isn’t, so you lapse into a comfortable and familiar silence while you practice your magic.

Sometimes you use the color cube for this, but you won’t ask Papyrus to give it to you, so you grab the pillow off the bed and hold it a few feet above the ground before letting go. You use your shortcut to pull it back into the air each time it gets close to the ground. You only learned how to do this recently: an unholy mix of time magic and space magic that lets you bring something (or someone) back to a point in space that they were in at some previous point in time.

The pillow game is easy, you only have to bring it back a few moments, and nothing goes with it, so you get bored fast, letting it fall closer and closer to the ground and bringing it up smaller and smaller degrees, until it’s practically hovering a half an inch up. You reach back a few minutes and flick it two feet into the air again with a little ping.

Papyrus stands up next to you, suddenly tense. You let the pillow hit the floor and follow his stare outside the cell. You hear footsteps. Papyrus looks at you and you look back at him - Gaster almost never comes back after lights-out. On the other hand, something about those footsteps is unfamiliar, lighter, more timid.

Is it someone else?

Papyrus seems to have come to the same conclusion, because he looks about ready to call out to them, but he hesitates when the footsteps become quieter and you hear the click of a door opening.

For a long time, nothing happens. You don’t dare to make any noise, but tiptoe to Papyrus’ side near the edge of your cell.

After a few more minutes, Papyrus whispers, “Do you think they’re gone?”

“i don’t know,” you reply, “maybe.”

A few more minutes later, you give up on listening and sit back down next to where the pillow landed. You still don’t make any noise, because Papyrus is still trying to hear something, but you shortcut the pillow into the air again.

Another couple of minutes later, you hear something like a machine activating, and stand up. Papyrus takes a step backward. The door to your cell fizzles and sputters out like a dying fire. The noise stops. The door stays open.

Papyrus looks at you. You look at him. You both look at the door. He grabs your hand and runs through it.

You have no idea where you are. You slowed down after getting some distance away from your cell, but neither of you have seen the whole lab, so you don’t know where to start looking for an exit.

You run on instinct when you hear the footsteps again, but it isn’t Gaster’s voice that calls after you.

“Wait!”

You don’t know who this person is or what she’s doing here, but you aren’t willing to take any chances right now, so you tighten your grip on Papyrus’s hand and keep running.

She follows you, only barely managing to keep up.

“I can help you,” she says, and Papyrus slows down hesitantly, but you pull his arm to get him to keep going. She could be lying. You can’t take that risk.

You turn a corner and run straight into a dead end. Papyrus turns around first and you follow suit, looking straight at the person for the first time. You cast your blue magic on her and she stops, surprised, gripping her chest with one hand.

“I can help you,” she repeats, sounding only slightly more afraid than she was before, “M-my friend is on her way, we c-can get you out of h-here, we c-can-”

You cut her short. “why should we trust you?”

“Uh.”

“give me one good reason,” you say, hoping she doesn’t pick up on the fear in your voice, “that we should believe a word of what you have to say.”

And the look on her face says it all - she doesn’t have one. You get ready to shift your blue magic and push her away, and you can see her brace herself, and you feel Papyrus’s hand on your shoulder.

“SANS, WAIT.”

You stop and look up at him, confused.

“SHE’S TELLING THE TRUTH.” he says, and the tone of his voice tells you that he really means it, but his eyes are glowing orange with fear.

“are you sure?” you ask, when he doesn’t say anything else.

He nods, but it’s tense and apprehensive. You look closer at the person. She’s some kind of lizard monster, about your height, wearing a dirty lab coat. She looks thoroughly confused and completely terrified. She doesn’t speak as you look her over, but she looks you in the eye.

You release your blue magic. She steps towards the wall of the hallway and leans on it for support, but doesn’t come near you.

“who are you?” you ask, when she’s calmed down a bit, “why are you here?”

“M-my name is Alphys,” she replies, and she starts to say something else but is cut off by a loud crash from somewhere else in the lab.

He’s back.

Alphys cusses and runs toward the sound. You and Papyrus follow a few paces behind and duck behind the corner to listen.

“Alphys?” you hear Gaster’s voice, “What the hell are you doing here?”

“How long.” Alphys’ footprints become less hurried and more assertive as they get farther away from you. “How long have you been doing this? What the h-hell were you thinking?”

“You found them?”

“I always knew you were fucked up,” Alphys stops moving, “but this? This is insane. E-even without the moral implications, it’s useless. What were you expecting to accomplish? How long did you think you could hide it? How long h-have you hid it a-already?” There’s a hint of fear in her voice.

“I think I can hide it for some time longer.” says Gaster, and you hear the familiar sound of blue magic gripping her soul.

“Y-you’re too late,” she says, terrified, “I already c-called the royal guard. Undyne will be here s-soon.”

“Do you think I’m afraid of her?”

“I think you should be.”

Papyrus whispers something behind you. “We need to help her.”

“what?”

“I’ll distract him,” he says, “You can get this Undyne person here sooner.”

“no way,” you tell him, “it’s too risky, you could get hurt-”

“She could die.” You know it’s true, but you still don’t trust her.

“so could you,” you say instead. He pulls you into a hug.

“White and purple and blue, remember?”

You do remember. The two of you have both seen your deaths. You know his is covered in white and purple and blue, and yours in red and gold. You know that means neither of you will die here. It doesn’t stop your stomach from churning at the thought.

He releases you and runs around the corner. After a moment’s hesitation, you follow.

* * *

The wall of bones Papyrus summoned to protect Alphys also keeps Gaster from seeing you when you run to her side. She looks surprised and confused and you add your own magic to the wall to keep it standing.

“look,” you tell her, “i don’t know who you are or what you want but if my brother trusts you then so do i.” You stop talking for a moment to reinforce the wall, which is already crumbling. “you said you have a friend nearby. where are they?”

“She should b-be just outside the lab.”

“give me a direction and a distance.”

She gives you a confused look you don’t bother to acknowledge and complies, pointing a clawed hand to the side. “That way, about a hundred meters.”

That’s awfully vague, but you decide to give it a shot anyway. You grab her hand and look for a point in her timeline that matches up. There’s one just an hour or two back, so you focus in on that.

Getting Alphys there is the easy part. The hard part is going with her. You brace yourself and jump.

The first thing you notice is the heat. As a skeleton, it’s only mildly uncomfortable, but you’ve never felt anything like it before. You look around and notice that the ground is red, along with the walls and the ceiling. Alphys looks around and then looks at you, open-mouthed.

“H-how the hell did you do that?”

“magic.” You’ll explain later. Right now there’s no time for that. “where’s this friend of yours?”

“Um,” she says, “this way.”

She takes off running and you follow her. Another couple hundred meters away you find a fish lady running towards you.  She stops when she sees you and looks at Alphys questioningly.

“The hell?” she says.

“Gaster is f-fucking insane,” says Alphys, slowing to a stop in front of her. “He just t-tried to kill me.”

“Who the hell is this?” she asks, pointing at you.

You don’t bother to answer, instead grabbing each of their hands with one of yours and shortcutting straight back to the lab.

It’s a rough landing - you half-assed it and both of your newfound companions find themselves stumbling on the uneven ground of the lab. You ignore them to look for Papyrus and Gaster.

“papyrus?” you say. You don’t see him.

You hear something down the hall and run toward it. Alphys and Undyne follow you. You see him when you turn a corner, suspended in midair by Gaster’s blue magic.

He’s hurt.

“PAPYRUS!” you shout, casting away any sense of self preservation and running toward him. He doesn’t look at you. You reach out your hand and focus on his soul, trying to counter Gaster’s blue magic. It doesn’t work right away, but Gaster is distracted enough that Papyrus starts to fall by the time you reach him.

You catch him and immediately collapse under his weight, holding your arms tight around his ribcage. He’s unconscious.  You lie him down and rise to your knees to inspect the wound. His skull is cracked, and three of his ribs are completely shattered. You focus on the skull first, using the healing magic you learned from him, but it does almost nothing.

There’s fighting behind you.

You use your shortcut magic to hold the ribs in place and try to heal them. It barely manages to mend the bone so that they don’t fall apart. You try again.

“papyrus, come on,” you wonder if he can hear you, “white and purple and blue, remember? you can’t die. not yet.”

You try again. Nothing.

“not here.”

You try the skull. Nothing.

“papyrus...”

You put one hand on his cheek, as though that would do anything.

“please wake up.”

There’s fighting behind you.

You pour everything you have into your healing magic.

Suddenly you see Alphys kneeling on the other side of him.

“it’s not working.” you tell her. You’re starting to feel light-headed from using so much magic.

She pulls a container of some kind of liquid from her labcoat’s pocket. You let her brush your hands aside and she applies a few drops to the crack in his skull before casting a healing spell of her own.

A spear flies next to your head and imbeds itself in the wall in front of you. Aphlys ducks out of the way, startled, watching the fight. You stand up.

None of this is any good if Undyne loses.

* * *

You attack Gaster with everything you have. He blocks every attack, even the ones coming from Undyne, but he only fights back against her.

As soon as she releases the green magic encasing his soul, you cast blue and slam him against the far wall.

It hurts him, but he stands up with ease and keeps fighting. You send another wave of bones at him. He dodges, but trips on a cord in his haste. He falls into a machine you recognize. It’s off.

You shortcut towards him. He sends an attack at you and you dodge easily, walking toward the on switch.

When you turn it on, the whole room goes white. You hear Gaster scream somewhere in the haze. You look his direction and say nothing. There’s nothing to say.

By slow degrees, his voice breaks and goes quiet.

You feel Papyrus’s hand on your shoulder. You look up at him, confused. He looks in Gaster’s direction. You turn off the machine. The room goes silent.

You pull Papyrus into a hug and don’t bother trying not to cry. He hugs you back, saying nothing.

Exhaustion creeps up on you and you find yourself falling to your knees. Papyrus follows, wrapping you in his arms like a child.

“i thought you were going to die.” you say, quiet enough that maybe he can’t hear you.

He hugs you a little tighter.

* * *

After a few minutes you decide you should go talk to Alphys. You stand up. Papyrus follows suit, which is a good thing because it means he’s there to catch you when your lightheadedness returns and you almost faint. He pulls you back to your feet and gives you a concerned look.

“YOU USED TOO MUCH, DIDN’T YOU.” he says.

“what? no,” you protest, because he has no business worrying about you right now, but when you step forward and almost fall again you concede, “ok, maybe just a bit.”

“SANS...”

“i’m fine,” you insist, but as soon as you try to step forward again you feel blue magic tug on your soul as Papyrus lifts you onto his shoulders. “bro, you don’t have to do that, you’re hurt.”

“SO ARE YOU,” he retorts, and you don’t have a good way to answer that, so you don’t.

Instead, you let him carry you over to where Alphys is looking through the scattered notes on Gaster’s desk.

“Oh,” she says when she sees you, “A-are you two okay?”

“yup,” you say, and Papyrus nods.

“WHATEVER YOU DID WORKED REALLY WELL,” he says, “I FEEL GREAT!”

You run your finger over the place his skull was cracked. He’s right - the crack’s nearly gone. You make a mental note to ask Alphys what it was, later.

“That’s good,” she says, looking relieved, “So, are you ready to get out of here?”

* * *

“where’s Undyne?” you ask on the way through the lab.

“She went to tell King Asgore what happened.”

“hm.” you yawn, resting your head on Papyrus’s. He jostles you in response.

“DON’T FALL ASLEEP,” he says, and you groan, “WE HAVE TO SEE IT TOGETHER.”

You pause for a second, looking down at him, before smiling. “don’t worry, bro. i won’t.”

“Um,” says Alphys, “Papyrus, why are you carrying Sans? If you don’t mind me asking, I mean.”

“this is our most powerful form,” you tell her.

“ALSO, SANS CAN’T WALK RIGHT NOW.” says Papyrus.

“yeah, that too.” you laugh.

“Oh,” says Alphys.

* * *

When you recount the story to Chara, you leave out the part where the Gaster Blasters actually spoke to you for the first time, because they had just hung out and followed you around after he died, and apparently were willing to come for you whenever you needed them now, because you had LOVE now. You also leave out everything that happened before then, at first. The kid has the basics, they don’t need the details.

There’s a long pause when you finish.

“do you think that even the worst person can change?” you ask, out of morbid curiosity or a desire to fill the hole in the conversation or something else, “that anyone can be good, if they just try?”

Chara twists a crayon between their fingers for a few moments before responding. “No.”

“my brother does,” you say, “always did. no matter how bad things got he’d always turn right around and offer him another chance. no matter what happened, he always offered forgiveness.”

And that makes it so much worse, because you know, no matter how angry Papyrus might have been, he never would have killed Gaster. He was always stronger than you.

“He sounds like Asriel.” says Chara, and you don’t know why, but that makes you feel a little better.


	3. A Question, an Answer, and a Buttercup-Cinnamon Pie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "there’s a stairway to heaven and a highway to hell and i sure as shit ain’t climbin no stairs"  
> \- tumblr user herblesbians

[Chara]

* * *

 You tell the Bad Pun Skeleton everything.  You tell him about the surface and about your parents and about your whole life up until right now.  You explain to him that humans are evil, and that you had to kill your mom and dad before they killed you.  You explain to him why you couldn’t just stay in the world of the humans anymore after that.  You tell him why you climbed mount Ebott, and what happened when you did.  He listens and says nothing the whole time.

The Bad Pun Skeleton tells you everything.  He tells you about the experiments and about Gaster’s lab.  He tells you about his eye and about his brother.  He tells that he saw his own death once, in blotchy colors.  Red and gold.  You wonder if that has anything to do with the golden hallway, or the mysterious red substance he leaked when you cut him.  He tells you how he and his brother escaped the lab.  You listen and say nothing.

When both of you are tired of talking, you say something about how Asriel should be back by now, and stand up to leave.

“hey,” he says, before you go, “you won’t tell anyone, right?”

“Don’t worry,” you reply, retrieving the knife and strapping it to your side again, “I’ll keep your secrets long as you keep mine.”

He nods.  You leave.

* * *

You remember when the underground felt big.  You were so young, and your house had been so small, and the path along Ebott had been so narrow.  You remember how big and warm and friendly it all was when Asriel found you and helped you.  You remember how the world was at your fingertips for the first time, and you remember wanting to grab onto it and never let go.  For the first time, you had found something worth living for.

So you don’t understand why they want to get to the surface so bad.  Humans are evil, no ifs ands or buts about it.  You told everyone that and they all believed you, but they still want to go to the surface, where the humans are.

You don’t understand it, but you owe these people so much and you’ve given them so little, you start to think maybe you can help them get there.

You would only need six.  But you’d need Asriel’s help.  You decide to sleep on it.

* * *

You’re up late one night when the nightmares are too much, sitting on your bed and watching Asriel breathe.  You would only need six...

On a whim, you decide to go see how Bad Pun Skeleton is doing.  You want to distract yourself from contemplating suicide, and the best way to do that is probably to talk to someone.

You close the door carefully behind you and walk the short distance to Sans and Papyrus’s house.  Before you knock, you push your ear to the crack and listen for any kind of movement.  If they’re actually asleep, you don’t want to wake them.

“SANS, ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THIS?  IT SEEMS DANGEROUS.”

Well that sounds interesting.

“well, no.  but if they’re really sentient, i at least want to know what they want.”

Well.  That sounds VERY interesting.

“OKAY, BUT NOT IN THE HOUSE.”

You duck out of sight before they open the door and follow them.

* * *

They don’t stop until they reach Snowdin Woods, about as far as you can get without going in the ruins.  You’re glad they don’t go any farther.  You don’t like the ruins.

Papyrus stops first, in the woods.  “THIS PLACE LOOKS ABANDONED.”

“alright,” says Sans, “you might want to stand back.”

“Can I watch?” you ask, coming out of hiding after deciding at the last minute that it isn’t wise to get too close to someone who’s about to do something dangerous when they don’t know you’re there.

“what the hell are you doing here?”

“I got bored and went for a walk,” you lie, “didn’t expect to find _you_ here.”

“you should go home,” he says.

“What are you doing?” you ask.

He just glares at you a moment before defeatedly throwing his hands in the air.  “you know what, fine, you can watch.  just stay near papyrus.”

He doesn’t have to tell you twice.  The taller skeleton may get on your nerves like 90% of the time, but you won’t deny that next to him is absolutely the safest place to be if something goes wrong.

When you’re safely by Papyrus’s side, Sans turns away from both of you and raises one hand into the air.

Something materializes above him.  It looks like an animal skull of some sort.  Papyrus looks tense, next to you.

“Woah,” you say to him, “What is that?”

“IT’S A WEAPON.” he replies, quieter than he usually speaks but still pretty loud.

The weapon moves, and you notice one of its eyes is glowing.  It floats down to Sans’ eye level and speaks in a weird language you don’t understand.

“i just want to talk.” says Sans, apparently having understood it.

It says something else, looking displeased.

“how am I supposed to ask you for help if i don’t know how you work?” asks Sans, “you’re using my magical energy to stay alive, right?  i don’t plan on ever _needing_ your help, but i want to know what you can do, just in case.”  It says something else, to which Sans replies, “we’ll see.”

“What did it say?” you ask Papyrus.

“THAT HE WILL.” he says.

The weapon looks at you, seeming to have noticed your presence for the first time.  It moves toward you, saying something.

“woah, chill,” says Sans, “chara’s a friend.”  It says something else.  “wait,” Sans replies, “you can see the LV of _everyone_?”

The weapon replies in what you think is the affirmative.  Sans hums thoughtfully.

You guess it must have pointed out that you’re at LV 2, ever since you killed your parents.  You’re mildly unsettled that Papyrus must have heard that, but whatever.

“can we get back on track?” says Sans, and the weapon flies back towards him, “first things first; do you all have, like, individual names?”  The weapon says what you think is “no”.  “so what should i call you?”  It says something.  “that’s dumb.”  It looks offended.  “okay, okay. ‘gaster blaster’ it is, then.”  It seems ambivalent.

“okay, one more question,” says Sans, “how do you fire?”

It says something, and Sans reacts as though following directions, his blue eye starts to glow and the blaster opens its mouth, pointing at the forest in front of you.  It goes off in an explosion of light blue and you almost shield your eyes, but resist the urge because you’re probably never going to see this again.

It leaves a line of scorched ground where the blue had been, and disappears.

* * *

 Maybe you won’t need Asriel’s help.

You find Sans on a Saturday afternoon and ask to talk somewhere private, to which he (reluctantly) agrees.  He takes you to Snowdin through one of his shortcuts and once you reach the clearing he and his brother had tested the blaster in, you stop.

“Sans,” you say after listening for a moment to make sure you weren’t followed, “if you could free all of monsterkind from the underground, would you do it?”

He looks confused and disturbed, making himself comfortable on a rock before replying.  “sure.”

“Even if it meant you had to kill someone?”

“...”

“Even if it meant you had to kill six people?”

He thinks for a moment.  “no.”

“What if they were evil?”

“chara, where is this coming from?”

Well, this is already starting to look like a dead end.  You’ll never hear the end of it if you don’t explain though.

“It takes seven human souls to break the barrier,” you say, “but only one human soul and one monster soul to cross it.  If I die, and someone absorbs my soul, they could cross the barrier, collect six more, and set monsterkind free.”

“that’s insane,” replies Sans, “why would you kill someone so we could leave this place?  it’s not worth it.”

“Humans are evil, you know.”

“you aren’t.”

“I killed my parents.”

“you had to.”

“Yeah.  Because I’m evil.”

He says nothing.  You keep going.

“It’s only a matter of time before everyone figures that out.  We have this old saying back on the surface, ‘you either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.’  I’d rather die now so my family can go free than grow up hiding my nature from them.”

“you aren’t evil,” he repeats.

You sigh.  “Maybe not.  Yet.  But I will be.  When I grow up, I’ll be just like the rest of them.”

“you don’t have to be.”

You pull the knife from your side and hold it out in front of you.  “I’m halfway there already.”

You wait for him to say something, and strap it back to your side when he doesn’t.  “Think about it.” you say, and move to leave.

“chara,” he says, “why me?  you could’ve asked anyone.”

“Because you’re strong,” you tell him, “strong the way I am and the way Gaster was.  Strong in a way you think of as weakness.  Maybe it is.  But it means you’d be able to go through with it.  You’re not the kind of person who breaks promises.”

* * *

Buttercup poisoning would be one hell of a way to go.

Your dad can barely handle the small amount of buttercup he ate in that pie.  It really was an accident, though you should have known better.  Your hands blistered a bit just from mashing them up.  (Not that you’ll tell Dad that.)

You can’t help but laugh.  It’s easier to deal with things by laughing at them.

* * *

It still hurts.

More than it should.  More than you’ll ever be willing to admit.

Sometimes at night you can still hear the screams.  You can still see the bodies and feel the knife in your hand and hear the sudden realization in your head.

_“I did this.”_

Sometimes at night you wake up screaming.

Sometimes Asriel wakes up, too.  Sometimes he sits on your bed with you and comforts you.  Sometimes he tells you it’s all okay, and it’s all going to be okay.  Sometimes he means it.  Sometimes you believe him.

You don’t deserve him.  Or any of them.  You owe them so much.

It still hurts.

* * *

“Have you thought about it?” you ask Sans a few weeks later, the next time you’re alone with him.

He looks at you like you’re insane, which is fair because you probably are.  “kid, I already told you.  it’s out of the question.”

You sigh.  “What if I was going to die, anyway?”

“that wouldn’t change anything.”

“What if there were six humans on the surface who were also going to die anyway?”

“chara, stop.”  He puts a hand on your shoulder and you look at him.  His face looks grim, despite the permanent smile, and you can see etches of determination in his features.  “your plan is stupid and dangerous and it won’t work.”  He breaks eye contact and you guess being blunt like this is kind of exhausting for him.  “and even if it could,” he continues, looking down, “it wouldn’t be worth it.”

He releases your shoulder and you say nothing for a long moment.  He’s half right: it _is_ stupid and dangerous, but it would be _so_ worth it.  And with his help, it might just work.

“With that weapon of yours,” you say, “you could kill six humans in a single attack.  It would work, Sans.  With your help, it would work.”

He shakes his head, focusing his weird eyes on some point along the horizon.

“Sometimes, in this world, it’s kill or be killed.  You’re the only person I know who understands that.  Sans, do you really want to die _here_?”

“i regret it,” he says, finally looking at you again.  “i regret killing gaster, okay?  it wasn’t right, no matter how horrible a person he was.  what you’re suggesting is even worse.”  He starts walking away.  “i won’t help you.”

You don’t follow him.

* * *

Asriel agrees.

* * *

It smells like blood.

There’s blood in your piss and in your shit, and you’re bleeding from your throat and your hands.  Everything hurts.  Buttercup poisoning, it turns out, is one hell of a way to go.

Sans appears at your bedside one day and you pull yourself from your haze of self-pity to listen to him.

“what the fuck, chara?”

You take a long sip of the water on your nightstand before answering.  “Just because it won’t work,” you croak, “doesn’t mean it isn’t worth a shot.”

“so who’d you rope into it?” he asks, helping you put the glass back on the bed stand.

“Asriel.”

“your brother?  he _agreed_ to this?”

You shrug.  He sighs.

“what the fuck, chara.”

You laugh, and then choke on your laughter.  “Do you know,” you ask, “where humans go when they die?”  He doesn’t answer.  “Place called ‘hell’.”  You cough.  “Tell you what, when I get there, I’ll freeze it over for you.”

“what?”

“Humans are always saying that anything they don’t think will ever happen, ‘will happen when hell freezes over’ so, I’m gonna freeze it over and then maybe you’ll smile and _mean_ it for once.”

He looks offended.  You don’t care.

“Dunno where you monsters go when you die, but hey,” you look at him and give the biggest smile you can, “if we end up the same place, I’ll be the first to meet you there.  Promise.”

* * *

Your soul splits in half and shatters.  It doesn’t hurt.  You can hear your dad’s voice somewhere.

_“You are the future for humans and monsters.”_

_“Chara, stay determined.”_

You can feel Asriel - something warm - a soul, a body, kinder and gentler and warmer than yours ever was or ever could be.

You can see through him.  You can see your own body on the twin sized bed.  You reach out to it and grab onto it.  You clutch it to your chest, Asriel’s chest, and the two of you walk out of the underground together.

He looks out at the sunset and hugs your body tighter than ever.  You can feel how your death hurt him.  You can hear a thought in his head.

_“Chara, you lived with this?”_

You’re confused for a moment.  Yes, of course you lived with it.  The sun isn’t that great.  It’s just a bunch of hydrogen.  You push him to keep walking.

The path down Mt. Ebott is just as narrow as it was when you climbed up.  It opens, after a long time, into a clearing.  You look out and recognize your village.  Asriel notices the bed of flowers and sets your body down on it.  That seems appropriate, you think.

Asriel looks up.  The surface seems so big to him and you drink in his wonder at it.

_“You see?”_   you ask him, _“This is what we’re going to let all of monsterkind see, too.  We only need six.”_

You hear someone scream.  Asriel looks ahead and sees the humans.  They think he killed you.

They attack.  You move to fight back, but Asriel refuses.

_“What are you doing?”_

“ _They’re only trying to defend themselves.”_

“ _They’re HUMANS, Asriel!  They don’t care about me.  Fight them!”_

“ _No!”_

You can feel Asriel’s pain.  Every blow, every wound.  You thrash and scream inside of him.  You beg him to kill them, or to let you kill them.  He picks up your body.

The path up the mountain is even narrower this time.

Asriel steps into the underground and collapses.  Your body falls haphazardly on the floor.  Your parents ask what happened.  Asriel gathers his last breath and tells them.

His dust spreads across the garden.


	4. The Whole Truth, Or At Least, What’s Left Of It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate name for this chapter: The Lizard, the Skeleton, and the Dead Guy.
> 
> (Apologies for the delay. I blame my beta.)

[Sans]

* * *

You attend the funeral along with everyone else.  The whole kingdom mourns at once and you watch from the back of the room as they sprinkle Asriel’s dust on his favorite toys.  You don’t tell Toriel and Asgore the truth about their child’s suicide.  This is hard enough for them as it is.

* * *

Alphys tells you about the projects she’s working on for the king and you help her with them.  You start working on a machine of your own in the meantime.  King Asgore declares war on the humans, and you help Alphys with her determination experiments.

You fix the determination extractor, and when the first human dies you borrow the soul and use its determination to inject the fallen monsters.  It’s Alphys’ idea to use the flower, but you don’t argue.

You wonder if maybe you could go back in time.  Maybe you could talk Chara out of it, or tell the king and let him stop them.  Maybe Asriel would still be alive.

The first thing you try to do with your machine is understand your own shortcuts.  You think, if you can already travel space, using time as a canvas, maybe you can amplify that power and travel to the point in time a thing was, as well as the point in space.

You scrape Gaster’s dust off the bottom of the determination extractor.  What if he’d never died?  What if he’d never existed at all?

The machine works, sort of.  You can put an object in it and see its whole timeline, and travel to any point in it.  Not through time, but easily through space, over years and years, miles and miles.

You wonder if you could use it on a human.

You wonder what happens if you use it on yourself.

* * *

If Gaster’s journal was right, you and Papyrus were made from the remains of dead humans.  If that’s true, it would mean Gaster had been somewhere with humans.  It’s possible, technically, that he’d killed (one of?) those humans himself.  If so, he could easily have crossed the barrier.

You place his dust in the machine and turn it on.

It takes a while, but it shows you that yes, Gaster had been across the barrier at some point.  So, hypothetically, you could use this to go there after him.

You unlock the door and leave a note for Papyrus, just in case, and jump.

* * *

You wake up in the hospital and try to remember how the hell you got here.  You remember turning on the machine and trying to use your shortcut to cross the barrier, but that’s pretty much it.  Your eye hurts.  Everything hurts.

You can’t remember what it was you were using.  Something from the dump?  Something of Chara’s? No...

You open your good eye and look around.  Papyrus is sitting across the room.  He doesn’t know you’re awake yet.  You brace one hand against the bed frame and sit up as much as you can.  Your eye lingers on the metal plate screwed to the back of your hand.

WDG-1

S

That’s odd.  You suddenly don’t remember where it came from.

“what happened?” you ask, and Papyrus appears at your side.

“YOU DON’T REMEMBER?”

“i thought something might go wrong,” you say, rubbing your hand over your eye, “but i don’t remember anything after i turned on the machine.”

He pulls up a chair and sits next to you.  “YOU WERE UNCONSCIOUS WHEN I GOT THERE,” he says, “I HEARD A CRASH AND FOUND YOU PASSED OUT ON THE FLOOR OF YOUR LAB, AND THE MACHINE WAS ON, AND THEN IT EXPLODED.”

“what?”

“IT JUST,” he puts his hands together and throws them outward, “BLEW UP.”

“are you hurt?” you ask, sitting up the rest of the way.

“NO,” he says, “I’M FINE.”

You relax a bit, leaning onto the raised part of he hospital bed.  “i’m sorry, bro,” you say, “that was stupid.”  No matter how important it could’ve been if it had worked, you should never have done it without at least talking to Papyrus first.

“I’M JUST GLAD YOU’RE ALRIGHT.” he says, “AT LEAST, THAT YOU WILL BE.  THE DOCTOR SAID THAT YOU WILL NEED A FEW DAYS TO HEAL.”

You’re not surprised.  Your head is killing you.

“SANS,”  Papyrus looks pensive for a moment before asking, “WHAT WERE YOU TRYING TO DO?”

...You can’t lie to Papyrus.  This is going to sound even dumber when you say it out loud.  You avoid eye contact.  “i was trying to shortcut across the barrier.”

* * *

Papyrus has to leave eventually at the doctor’s insistence that he let you rest, and you convince him to grab your cell phone for you first (in case you need to call him, you said).  A little after he’s gone, you dial Alphys.

It only rings once before she answers.  “H-hello?”

“hey, Alphys,” you say, trying not to sound as lethargic as you feel, “you busy?”

“Um,” she says, “no?  What’s wrong?”

“what makes you think something’s wrong?”

“When w-was the last time you used a phone?”

She has a point.  You hate phones almost as much as she does.  You can’t risk going to talk to her in person, though.  Doctor’s orders.  Heh.  “that’s fair,” you reply, “i’ll just get to the point then.  i need your help with something.”

“With w-what?”

“you know that machine i’ve been working on that’s like, a catalyst for my shortcuts?”

“Yes...?”

“i tried to use it to cross the barrier.  it worked about as well as you’d expect, ‘cept afterward it kinda blew up.”

“What?”

“yeah,” you laugh (as much as you can), “i didn’t expect it to fail so spectacularly, heh.”

“Are you hurt?” she asks, sounding worried.

“eh,” you say, “i’ll be fine.  but I did get a little bedridden, so, uh, if you could go to my lab and make sure it isn’t still dangerous, i’ll owe you a favor.”

She pauses, then sighs.  “A-alright, I’ll call you back when I get there.”

“thanks.”

The phone clicks off.  You decide now would be a great time for a nap.

* * *

You wake up to your phone ringing and recognize Alphys on the caller ID.“sup, alphys,” you say when you flick it on, “what’s the damage?”

“Well,” she replies, “you t-totaled your house and scared the shit out of your neighbors, but it d-doesn’t look like anyone was hurt other than you.”

“that’s good,” you say, “any lingering magic?”

“A little, but nothing dangerous.  I-it should dissipate on its own in a few hours.”

“that’s great.” you say, “thanks, alph.  i owe you one.”

“And d-don’t you forget it,” she says, laughing a little.  “Seriously, though, Y-you’re really lucky no one was hurt.  I have no idea h-how you made it out alive.”

“well, that’s because of papyrus.”  It’s not the first time he’s saved your life.  You should really find a way to make it up to him.

“Just be careful,” says Alphys.

“don’t worry,” you reply, “i’ve learned my lesson.”

* * *

The machine suffered the explosion with surprisingly little damage, so you decide to hold on to it for now.  It doesn’t take up much space, anyway, and it could be useful eventually, but you don’t really bother trying to fix it until Alphys calls you two weeks after the incident.

“I’m calling in that favor,” she says.

“sure, what do you need?”

“That old machine of yours could trace an object’s timeline, right?”

“yeah.”

“Can you get it running again?”

“um,” you say, “probably.  what do you need it for?”

“I got a letter in the mail with no return address and I need to know who sent it.”

“well, that’s ominous.  sure, i’ll see what i can do.”

* * *

You don’t have to fix all of the machine, just the part that can show you the timeline, so it only takes a few days to get it back to something like “running.”  You call Alphys over as soon as it’s ready and she brings the letter.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” she asks when she sees how broken it still looks.

“sure,” you say, “it won’t _do_ anything, really.  it can just look right now.”

She hands you the letter and you put it in and flick it on.  It complains, but spits out a report before long.

You glance it over.  “ok, looks like...” but something isn’t right.  “wait.”  You reread it, then grab the pencil off your desk and stick it in the machine.  The report it spits out for that is similar, and neither of them make much sense.  They both show the object jumping rapidly back and forth between different places.  Maybe it just isn’t working?  “maybe it’s getting feedback from other timelines...” but no, that shouldn’t be possible.

“How?” says Alphys.

You shrug.

* * *

After a lot of fiddling, you manage to separate the information into about a hundred different paths.  Timelines, you guess.  After a lot more fiddling, you manage to extend its reach a couple years into the future.

It doesn’t look good.

When you tell Alphys, she doesn’t seem to care about the letter anymore.

* * *

You knock three times and say to the door, “knock-knock,” and nobody answers because there isn’t anybody on the other side, so you imagine a “who’s there” and reply, “a broken pencil.”  Nobody asks “a broken pencil who?” and you shrug.  “never mind, it’s pointless.”

You chuckle to yourself and knock again.  “knock-knock.”  Who’s there?  “beets.”  Beets who?  “beets me.”  That one’s not so good, you decide.  “knock-knock.  Dismay.  Dismay be a bad joke, but I thought it was ok.”  That one needs a better ending, you think, knocking again.  “knock-knock.”

“Who is there?”

You freeze for a second, and your first question is whether she heard the horrible jokes you just unleashed.  You need to follow them up with a decent one if you don’t want to disappoint.  “...dishes.”

“Dishes... who?” She sounds confused and kind of nervous.

“dishes a very bad joke.”

There’s a moment of hesitation, but the lady behind the door laughs.  Full and bright, like it’s the best joke she’s ever heard.  You’re too busy being surprised to laugh along, but after a few moments you knock again.  “knock-knock.”

She replies a lot faster this time.  “Who’s there?”

“icon.”

“Icon who?”

“icon tell you another, if you want.”

This time, when she laughs, you find yourself laughing with her.

* * *

“Are you feeling alright?”

You stop looking at the device in your hand to turn your head toward the door.  “i’m fine,” you say, before starting to fiddle with it again, “i guess i’m just a little distracted.”

“By what?” says the nice lady behind the locked door.  You think about telling her the truth - that you’d brought a project with you that, when finished, should give you the ability to teleport just about anywhere within the underground, (and _from_ anywhere in the underground, this time), but decide on a half-truth instead.

“eh, i’ve just been feeling kind of existential lately.  it sounds dumb to say it out loud.”

She laughs.  “Nothing you say could sound as dumb as some of the jokes you’ve told me.”

“heh, yeah, you’re right.” you don’t really feel like talking about it, though.

“So what is it?” she says.

You look up at the roof of the cave and decide it would take too much effort to dodge the question.  “it’s just... you know, i can still remember when the underground felt _big_.  when Papyrus and i were little i thought we could just pick a direction and start walking and we’d never reach the end.” you chuckle a little halfheartedly, “no walls, no goodbyes, no locked doors... it felt like we could explore it forever.  and now, well, here i am.” sitting at the base of a giant locked door, telling knock-knock jokes.  She doesn’t say anything.  “maybe i’m having a midlife crisis,” you laugh, “it’s like every year the underground gets smaller, and every day is shorter than the last.”  and the days started repeating two months ago, even though you wouldn’t know that if it wasn’t for your machine.

But you’ve felt the gaps where time shifts, when reality seems to lurch forward without actually moving, like you’re shortcutting to a place you already were.

“you know,” you say when you realize she isn’t going to fill the silence, “i didn’t really wonder about the surface ’til chara and asriel died.  were you around for that?  i think it happened before the ruins closed up.”

You wait for her to answer a little longer than it usually takes her.  “I... yes, that was before I left.”

“you know all about it, then.”  There’s a few more moments of uncomfortable silence.  You wonder if she doesn’t want to talk about it.  “i actually knew chara.” you say.

“Oh?”

“yeah, we weren’t exactly _friends_ , but...” but what else could you have been?  “...but, they once told me about their home on the surface.  the way they described it, it sounded pretty awful.  so, I always wondered why they cared so much about those flowers.”

“It doesn’t surprise me.” she says, “Chara was always... sentimental.  I’m sure it meant something to them.”

“yeah, probably.”  You wait for her to speak, but she doesn’t, so you keep going.  “do you ever wonder if they got to see the flowers when asriel went to the village?  through his eyes or whatever?  they say human souls keep some level of individuality when a monster absorbs it.”

“I hope so.”  Her voice is almost a whisper and you wonder if she means for you to hear it.  “God, I hope so.”

* * *

Papyrus finds you that night at Grillby’s cracking horrible jokes and staring down a bottle of some kind of alcoholic beverage.  You look up at him through the haze of drunkenness and say something stupid and he grabs you by the hand and leads you a few steps before giving up and carrying you on his back the rest of the way.

* * *

You wake up on the couch with a splitting headache and immediately cover your eyes with your sleeve to blot out the light.  You hear movement in the kitchen and Papyrus comes into the living room.  “SANS, YOU’RE AWAKE.”

You groan and sit up, still not opening your eyes more than a squint.  “unfortunately.”

He hands you a glass of water which you accept but don’t drink from just yet, and sits down next to you on the couch.  “SO,” he says, “ABOUT LAST NIGHT.”

“i got a little carried away, didn’t i?” you chuckle.  Papyrus is unimpressed.  “won’t happen again.”  You say, and your hangover can certainly speak to that.

Papyrus is silent for a moment, looking pensive, before he says, “BROTHER, I...” he looks away, “I CAN TELL YOU’RE KEEPING SOMETHING FROM ME.”

You tense up instinctively.  Papyrus keeps talking.

“AND... I KNOW YOU PROBABLY THINK YOU’RE PROTECTING ME BY NOT TELLING ME.  I WON’T PUSH YOU ON IT, BUT... MAYBE IT WOULD HELP YOU TO TALK ABOUT IT.  I WASN’T GOING TO SAY ANYTHING, BUT IF IT’S WHAT CAUSED YOU TO DO... THIS, IT ISN’T WORTH IT.” he looks at you again, smiling, “AND EVEN IF YOU CAN’T TELL ME, I WANT YOU TO KNOW I’M HERE FOR YOU, SANS.  NO MATTER WHAT.”

He waits for you to respond, and you have no idea what to say.  He’s right, on some level.  You can’t keep dealing with it alone, but you don’t want him to get hurt.  Ignorance is bliss, and Papyrus deserves all the bliss he can get.  But on the other hand, he’ll worry about you if you say nothing.

Fuck it.  The timeline is going to reset anyway.  “time is a dead tree.” you say.

“OKAY,” says Papyrus, standing up.

“wait, i’m going somewhere with this.”

“YOU’RE NOT MAKING ANY SENSE.”

“exactly.  none of it makes any sense.  i...  look, it’d be easier to show you.”

He looks skeptical, but follows when you lead him to your lab.

“y’know that machine i tried to cross the barrier with a while back?”

“THE ONE THAT ALMOST KILLED YOU?”

“yeah.  i got it running again, and now it’s getting feedback from other timelines.”  You dig around in a drawer until you find one of the graphs you made and show it to him.  “here’s us,” you say, “and here’s our timeline.  see how it branches apart and gets cut off at some points?”

“YES.”

“that’s because there’s something, or some _one_ , messing with it.  and this,” you dig until you find the next graph, “is us in two years.”

The chart just _ends_ at two years.  Nothing you do can make it get any longer.  And it doesn’t make any damn sense.  Papyrus takes the graph from your hands and looks at it for a minute.  “WHAT DOES IT MEAN?”

“every timeline i’ve found gets cut off at the same point two years in the future.  something big is going to happen, and not a good kind of big.  and it’s already starting.  our timeline’s jumped more times than i can count, and i can’t keep track of it all, and it doesn’t make any sense.  time is a dead tree.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part of this chapter was inspired by "I'm Feeling Fine, Kid" by maximum_overboner and "Flowey Is Not a Good Life Coach" by unrestedjade
> 
> not that i dont become inspired by just about every god damn fanfiction i read but there are enough similarities here that i felt i should credit
> 
> (i still dont know how to do links)
> 
> they are both very long, very good, and very dark fanfictions that i was reading as i wrote this part. i would recommend them both to anyone who's prepared to watch papyrus suffer


	5. A Human Soul, a Plastic Knife, and a Death Wish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alternate name for this chapter: The Call of the Void
> 
> this was probably my favorite chapter to write ^u^

[Chara]

* * *

_You shamble out of the village, a knife in your hand and blood covering your body, and you make your way towards the mountain.  The path is long and narrow but you don’t stray until you hear rushing water through the trees.  You force your legs to carry you toward the sound, to wade into the shallow water, and you wash your face and hair and limbs in the water of the creek, so cold you expect to see ice in it, to die right now of hypothermia.  But you don’t._

_You rinse off your knife last and take a long drink from the creek before pushing yourself upright on numb legs and walking farther up the mountain._

_You see a hole in the ground, big and dark and inviting, and you give yourself one last chance to back down, to turn around and own up to what you did and keep living in the world of humans.  But you can’t.  There’s no explaining it and there’s no repenting it.  Your world doesn’t have anything left for you._

_The legends say no traveler who climbs this mountain ever returns.  You wonder if that’s because there are beasts at night who would kill a child like you on sight.  You look at the hole and you decide that would take too long.  You’re not going to wait around for someone else to kill you when you can do it yourself._

_Stabbing the knife through your belt, you take a step toward the hole.   You won’t be missed._

_You take another step.  You deserve this._

_You take another step.  They can’t know._

_You break into a run._

* * *

The memory burns into your skull and it aches.  You see something bright through your closed eyelids and you don’t open them.  Somewhere in the back of your head you hear a voice, young and innocent and unfamiliar, call your name.  You follow the sound.

* * *

You wake up on a bed of yellow flowers and your first thought is that this development makes no sense.  Your left hand reaches out in front of you without your permission.  You recognize it as a human hand, but not yours.

The human whose body you’re in sits up and looks around.  They reach their left hand into the bed of flowers and hold one in their hand without plucking it.

You speak without speaking, just to see if they can hear you.  _“Yellow flowers.  They must have broken your fall.”_

The human nods once before standing up and walking to the nearest door.  The yellow flower that greets them seems familiar but you can’t quite place it.

“Your soul starts off weak,” he says, “but can grow strong if you gain a lot of LV.”

That’s... one way of putting it, you guess.

“Down here, LOVE is shared through little white friendliness pellets.”

What the hell?

You think about warning the human about the flower’s plot to kill them, but decide better of it.  They’re a human, after all.  So they run right into the bullets and get hurt a lot worse than you thought they would.  The flower prepares his next attack, a circle of bullets surrounding you on all sides, and you wonder how the hell he has an unavoidable attack.  You can sense the human’s fear.

But none other than your mom steps in to save their ass.

“I am Toriel,” she says, “Caretaker of the ruins.”

So that’s where you are.  You wonder why she didn’t mention that she’s the queen.  You guess you’ll find out.

* * *

_"Chara,”_ the human asks without asking, _“What do I do?”_

The froggit bounds towards them and they dodge expertly.  _“Stay calm,”_ you tell them, _“You have some options here.”_   You know how to deal with froggits, so you point out the different things they can do.  They go with a compliment.

_“Froggit didn’t understand what you said, but was flattered anyway.”_

The human dodges another attack and you point out that its name is yellow now, so they spare it and walk toward the shining thing on the ground.

 _“Playfully crinkling through the leaves fills you with determination.”_ you say.  They laugh.  You join in.

* * *

_“If you’re cute,”_ you say, _“Monsters won’t hit you as hard.”_

The human looks skeptical, but shrugs and places the ribbon on their head anyway before turning their attention to the bandage on their left arm.  They start fiddling with it using their right hand, but it’s clear that they’re left handed, so you reach into their arm and help them take it off.

 _“It’s already been used several times.”_ you point out.  They nod solemnly and you guess they don’t want to talk about it.  You help them reapply it to the impressive wound along their arm.  It’s still kind of sticky.

* * *

The house is familiar and foreign at the same time.  The human starts wandering as soon as Toriel leaves to check on the pie.  They look at every object in the room and you give them what descriptions you have.  A box of really cool toys that don’t interest them at all, a bunch of shoes in all different sizes, a single bed, a picture frame... you wonder how long Asriel lived here.  You wonder how much of this was even _for_ Asriel.

They wander into the dining room and stare at the fire, and you tell them that it wouldn’t hurt if they touched it.  They believe you, but they don’t try it.  You notice that there are two big chairs and a little chair at the table.  The little chair belonged to Asriel, you guess, and you wonder where your dad is.

They walk through the hallway and snoop around in your mom’s room.  You read her diary to them and they give an embarrassing laugh at the pun.  They open her sock drawer and you make a joke about scandal and they laugh again.

They leave Toriel’s room and walk to the door to your dad’s, and the sign on the door says _“Room under renovations.”_   You wonder what the hell that means.  The human walks to the mirror.  _“It’s you.”_ you tell them.

They go back to their new room and sit on the bed to inspect their wound again.  Toriel healed it when you arrived, but it left a scar that you think won’t ever go away.  They wad up the bandage and throw it in the trash and you’re glad.  You think about asking where the wound came from, but decide better.  After all, they haven’t asked anything about you.

* * *

You’re a little distracted when the human walks from the ruins into Snowdin Woods.  Your mom’s warning echoes in your mind.

_“They come.  They leave.  They die.”_

Somehow, you don’t think you’re the last human to have fallen down before this one.  You wonder how long it’s been.  After all, boss monsters don’t age when they don’t have a kid, so it could’ve been centuries and you wouldn’t know by looking at her.

 _“They - Asgore - will kill you.”_ she’d said.  You guess your dad finally grew a spine, but it seems very unlike him to kill humans just for being human.  You wonder if that’s your fault.

The human stops in front of a large stick, derailing your train of thought, and you describe it to them out of habit.  _“It’s too heavy to pick up.”_ you add, thinking what a shame that is, because it would make a nice weapon.

The human isn’t more than a dozen meters along the trail when they hear a sound and double back to the stick.  You have to admit to being unnerved.  _“It’s been smashed like it was nothing...”_

The human shudders and keeps walking.

“Human.”

The human freezes.  You reach in to keep their hands from shaking.

“Don’t you know how to greet a new pal?  Turn around and shake my hand.”

They hesitate for a long moment before turning and accepting his extended hand.  They immediately jolt backward at the sudden noise from the whoopee cushion on his palm, but you’re too busy noticing his face for the first time to care.

You recognize that skeleton.  It’s Sans.  You guess it hasn’t been so long after all.

You laugh.

* * *

The human waves goodbye to Papyrus and heads toward Waterfall, finally letting out the laughter they were holding in during the entire date.

 _“Oh my god,”_ they tell you, _“I can’t believe I’ve been friendzoned by a skeleton.”_

 _“What were you expecting?”_ you ask, but you’re laughing, too, _“It’s Papyrus.  He’s too innocent to actually date anyone.”_ and too honest, but you leave that part out.

_“Hey, it was your idea to flirt with him.”_

_“It was also my idea to flirt with Mom, but you don’t see me acting surprised she wasn’t interested.”_

The human stops walking for a moment when you mention her, and sighs.  _“I should tell her I’m ok,”_ they say, and grab their cell phone with their left hand.

_“You know she won’t answer, right?”_

_“It’s worth a shot.”_

Nobody answers.  The human sighs, but doesn’t hang up before the voicemail kicks in this time.  You didn’t even know her phone _had_ voicemail, but the human doesn’t seem surprised.

“Are you there, Mom?” they say, “It’s me.  I just wanted to let you know that I’m okay, and, um, to say hello.  So, hello, heh.”  Their laugh sounds suspiciously like Sans’ and you don’t like it.  “Anyway, I’m heading into Waterfall now, and... and I’m going to be fine, okay?  I promise.  ...Bye.”

 _“Is it just me,”_ you ask as they start walking again, _“or did that promise sound really hollow?”_

They don’t answer, instead walking at a steady pace through the entrance to Waterfall.

_“Okay, fine, don’t answer me, that’s fine.”_

They pause, looking at one of the sparkling yellow things you’ve both been referring to as save points.  _“Chara, do you know what these are?”_

_“Huh?  No.  Do you?”_

_“No idea, but they have something to do with determination, right?”_

_“I guess so.”_

_“It seems like there’s a lot of that recently.  Is that because of you?”_

Well that’s an odd question that makes no sense.  _“No?  I don’t think so.  Why?”_

 _“Just curious.”_   They’re silent for a moment, and then, “ _I wonder what happens if I don’t SAVE.”_

 _“I don’t know.”_ you say, but you have a bad feeling about it.

The human walks past the save point without touching it.

* * *

_“So that’s why.”_ you say when you finally leave Waterfall and enter Hotland.  The human ignores the save point and walks south.

_“Why what?”_

_“Seven human souls.”_ you wonder if that’s including yours.  Probably not.  _“But if they already have six, why don’t they just send someone across the barrier to collect the rest?”_

 _“...Maybe it never occurred to them.”_ says the human, walking toward the river person.

 _“There’s no way.”_ you reply.

The human accepts the river person’s offer and hitches to waterfall, (“Tra la la, beware the man who speaks in hands.”) before walking straight towards Undyne’s house.  When they pass the entrance to the dump, they stop for a moment.  _“Chara,”_ they ask, _“What exactly are you?”_

 _“Good question.”_ is all you can think to say.  The human shrugs and joins Papyrus at Undyne’s house.

* * *

The human takes the elevator up from the core and stops when they get out to catch their breath.  It was one hell of a fight but they’re alive, and they walk over to the save point but don’t touch it.

 _“I knew it.”_ you think, _“Alphys is a shit liar.  I knew she was hiding something.”_

The human shrugs.

 _“Aren’t you angry?”_ you ask, _“She almost got you killed!”_

 _“...No.”_ they reply, _“I’m not mad.  Besides, people have had worse reasons for hurting me.”_

_“...Right, you haven’t been mad at any of them, have you?  You’re weird.”_

_“Maybe.”_

The human holds their cell phone in their left hand and thinks about calling someone, but decides against it and walks deeper into New Home.

* * *

Your house is exactly the same as it was when you died, except your mom’s room is locked.  The human goes into your old bedroom and opens the boxes on the floor.  There’s a heart-shaped pendant and a knife and both of them belonged to you.

You decide not to tell the human they’re holding the knife you killed your parents with.

They seem shocked and saddened by the monsters’ account of your death, and you’re glad they never learned the truth about your “illness.”

They encounter Sans in the golden hallway and almost cry at his speech about EXP and LOVE.  If only they knew what a hypocrite he’s being, you think.

They stop at the door to the barrier.

“Chara?” they say, out loud.

_“What?”_

“I think... I’m going to let him kill me.”

Shit.  _“Why?!”_

“You know why.  They only need one more.  I’m being selfish.”

 _“You’re being human is what you’re being.”_ you say, and you aren’t sure if you mean that as an insult or not.  _“Look, if you want to talk it out and kill yourself after, fine, but please don’t throw the fight.  It’s a matter of pride at this point.  You don’t have to kill him, just, beat him, to prove you can, and then, maybe.  Okay?”_

They hesitate, thinking, for a long moment.

“Yeah, okay.”

* * *

The human stares at the black screen for a long time after the audio cuts out.  For all the shit they’ve already seen down here, you’d think the tapes would be the least disturbing to them, but they just stand there, frozen, until you finally say something.

_“Okay, are we done now?  Can we get back to turning the power on so we can leave this hellhole of a lab?”_

“Buttercups.” they say, out loud, “You...”

_“Yes, I killed myself, ok?  Remember how I told you not to let Asgore kill you?  This is why.  I already tried that and it didn’t fucking work.  Can we go do the thing now?”_

“That... makes you kind of a hypocrite, doesn’t it?” they laugh.

_“This isn’t funny.”_

“I know.”

* * *

The human saves their friends on their own, and it might’ve been left at that, but you stop them, and say that there’s one more person who needs to be saved.

You use the human’s voice to call his name, and they lend you their power, just for a moment, and you get through to him somehow.

And when he stops, when he calls out in fear and pain and when he relents, when he can’t muster the will to harm you anymore, he calls your name.  Yours, and not the name of the human who’s body you’re in.  And you feel... glad.  He recognizes you.

“I know,” he says, “You’re not really Chara, are you?”

...Well, he sort of recognizes you.

And Asriel, poor sweet crybaby Asriel, is the first to bother to ask for their real name.

“Frisk.”

Frisk.

You let that sink in for a moment.  Frisk, the human who made it through the entire underground unscathed without hurting anyone.  Frisk, the child who lent you their power, their body, their life...  Frisk, who doesn’t even hesitate to forgive Asriel immediately in the face of everything he did.

And Asriel, poor sweet crybaby Asriel, attacks the barrier with everything he has.

_“The barrier was destroyed.”_

* * *

“Ha... ha.”

“I don’t want to let go.”

* * *

Frisk wakes up surrounded by their friends and agrees to go for a walk through the underground.  They spend a long time walking, and you get kind of bored, but you don’t complain.  After all, this is the end of their adventure.  They have a right to drag it out if they want.

“You know,” they say on the way through Snowdin Woods, “if you want to say stuff out loud, I don’t mind.”

You think about it for a moment before answering, _“It wouldn’t seem right.  This is your body, Frisk, not mine.”_

“Could you leave if you wanted?”

_“...No, I don’t think so.”_

“Then it’s your body, too.”

...You’ll have to think about it.  You change the subject in the meantime.  _“By the way, Frisk, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”_

“What is it?”

_“How do you know my name?  I never asked for yours because it seemed too weird that you knew mine already, so I thought we might’ve introduced ourselves and I forgot, or something, but I’m certain I never heard the name ‘Frisk’ until you told it to Asriel.  So how did you know I’m Chara?”_

They stop walking for a moment.  “I don’t know,” they admit, “I just... knew it.”

_“...Huh.”_

They walk into the room they fell down in, and you’re just as surprised as them to see Asriel.

* * *

“Maybe... the truth is... Chara wasn’t really the greatest person.”

Part of you wants to be angry.  He just told Frisk some really personal shit about you and called you a bad person, and part of you thinks you _should_ be angry, but you’re not.

You’re worried about Frisk’s refusal to tell him why they climbed the mountain.  You’re worried about what they’ll think of you now that they know.  You’re upset at yourself for caring about this human so damn much, but you’re not angry.  Not at Asriel.

“While you, Frisk,” he says, “You’re the type of friend I wish I always had.”

Frisk waits for you to respond, somehow.  You think they’re expecting you to take them up on their offer to use their mouth.  You don’t.

 _“...It’s good,”_ you tell them, _“It’s good that he finally figured that out.”_

* * *

Frisk sits on the edge of a cliff, staring at the view long after sunrise turns to midday.  They declined Asgore’s offer to be the ambassador and told Toriel they had somewhere to go, which disappointed you but you understand.  The kid must have a whole life you don’t know about, because you never bothered to ask.

But right now, you’re just wondering why they haven’t climbed down the mountain yet.

Eventually you get concerned enough to ask, and you finally take them up on their offer to say things out loud.  “Hey, Frisk, what’s wrong?”  It feels weird to talk out loud again, but they really don’t seem to mind at all.

They do seem to mind the question, though.  It’s a long time before they answer you.  “I lied to her.”

“Who, Toriel?”

They nod.  “I told her I had places to go.  I told her I had a home already.  I lied.”

You remember the wound on their arm that you never asked about.  “It’s not too late to go back.  I’m sure she’d understand.”

“I... no.  She’s better off without me.” they say, looking down.

Well shit, that sounds familiar.  “So then... what now?”

Frisk stands up.  “Do you want to know why I climbed Mt. Ebott?”

“Not if you don’t want to tell me.”

They hesitate for a long moment.  “I was planning to kill myself.”

“...Yeah, that was my first guess.”

Frisk takes your pendant in their left hand and looks at it.  “It’s been fun, Chara, but my reasons for that... haven’t exactly gone away, you know?”

Shit.  “Frisk...”

“I hate to have to bring you with me, but-”

“Frisk.”

“I can’t go back.”

“You don’t have to go back.  You can find Toriel, she can help you and we both know she would-”

“Chara, I-”

“Please.”  You can’t stop your voice from shaking.  “Please, Frisk, don’t.”

Frisk wipes a tear away from their face and you’re not sure which one of you cried it. “I wish there was another way, but-”

“Of course there’s another way.  There’s always another way.  You don’t have to do this, Frisk.”

“Chara-”

“I’m scared.”

“...You are?”

You laugh.  “Of course I am.  Isn’t it our nature to be afraid?  Aren’t you?”

They look at the edge of the cliff and then at their arm, where the scar still is.  “No.” they say, “It’s been a long time since I was afraid of death.”

“Then...” you can’t stop laughing, “then I’ll be afraid for both of us.  Just, please, please don’t.  I don’t want to die again.”

“...I’m sorry.”

Frisk takes a step toward the cliff and falls off of it.

* * *

You’re in Snowdin, staring at one of the save points.  Frisk looks around frantically, and starts shaking.  You force them to sit down before they fall or something.

“What?” they say.

You sit and let your own fear slip away as it’s replaced by anger.  They killed you.  You died all over again because of them.  They should have known better.

“Where...”

You interrupt them.  “Good news, Frisk, I figured out what the save points do.”  You stand up and walk towards Waterfall.  You see Papyrus in the distance and smile.  “Tell you what,” you say, grabbing the plastic knife with your right hand, “why don’t we play a game?  You want to die?  I’ll get you killed.  I’ll get us killed more times than you can _count_.”

They object, but right now your determination is stronger than theirs.  Right now this body is yours to command.  You ignore them as you wait for Papyrus’ speech to end.

His dust spreads across the snow.


	6. The Human's Secret

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two chapters back to back! thanks mom!

[Sans]

* * *

Papyrus finds you in your lab at the end of a bottle of ketchup, looking at your spreadsheets as though staring at the data hard enough will turn it into something different.  You look up and wave at him, letting the plastic bottle fall to the floor.

He walks up to you but doesn’t speak, waiting for you to say something.  All you can think to tell him is the truth.  “we’re running out of time.”

Papyrus picks you up and carries you back toward your house.  “HOW LONG?” he asks after a long silence.

You bury your face in his shoulder and whisper, “a couple of days, maybe.  maybe less.”

“AND MAYBE MORE.” he says, and you want to believe him but you can’t.

* * *

That night you have a nightmare.  You dream of a human that comes out of the ruins covered with dust, voice heavy with guilt and eyes rigid with determination.  You dream of cursing your promise but refusing to break it until it’s already too late.  You dream of a vial of red liquid in Alphys’s lab, the needle you shove into yourself and squeeze.  You dream of a human that walks into the golden hallway, red from their own cuts soaking the white powder that collects over their skin, falling in red clumps onto the golden floor.  Red and gold.

You dream of a memory that never existed of a vision and a promise and the words are on the tip of your tongue like hearing a familiar song in the distance, always just barely out of reach.

You dream of killing the child a hundred times in a hundred different ways.  You dream of the human coming back, less guilty and more determined each time, staring at you with something like hatred, and then with something like pity.

You dream of a wound across your chest, leaking something that isn’t blood but isn’t ketchup either.  Something like determination which splatters on the golden floor.  Red and gold.  Red and gold.

You wake up covered in sweat.  Your room is dark but Papyrus comes in anyway and wraps you in a hug and tells you that everything’s okay, that it was just a dream.  Just a dream.

* * *

The human comes out of the ruins the very next day and you curse your promise but you don’t break it.  Their eyes are still rigid and determined but you can tell that there’s no dust on their hands this time.  They accept your handshake and laugh at the prank - a forced, weary kind of laugh that reminds you far too much of your own - and they head off into town without hurting a single monster.

You don’t believe it until after they date Papyrus, but for whatever reason you know they’re being good this time.

* * *

“You’d be dead where you stand.” you say, and you expect them to look surprised or afraid or at least unnerved, but instead they just nod and say, barely above a whisper,

“I know.”

* * *

When they reach the golden hall they have dark circles under their eyes and you feel time shift just before they walk up to you, and they interrupt your speech to give you a code word and you aren’t quite sure what to think of that at first, but you give them the key to your room and they walk back the other way.  You shortcut back to set up a prank but after Papyrus finds them, they find the key to your lab.

You don’t really want them to see it, but you’re not about to stop them.

* * *

Frisk hesitates for a long moment before they accept Asgore’s offer to be the ambassador.  You let them know to stop Papyrus and walk back into the underground, turning when you get out of sight to watch.  Frisk tells Toriel that they want to stay with her, but they ask her to go on ahead without them, and say they want to rest a minute before climbing back down.  Toriel hesitates, but agrees, and Frisk just stares at the sunrise for a little while before sitting down.

“Five hundred and eighty six times.” they say, and you wonder if they’re talking to you, but they keep going without turning around.  “That’s five hundred and eighty-six deaths, plus one hundred and fifty eight other loads, fifteen normal resets and two true resets, for a grand total of seven hundred and sixty one separate instances of time fuckery in the past two days alone.”  They laugh halfheartedly.  “See? I didn’t lose count.”

“who’re you talking to?” you ask, stepping out of your hiding place.

They look at you for a few moments, startled, before returning their gaze to the sunrise.  “God.” they say, voice dripping with sarcasm, “Who else?”

“didn’t think you believed in god.”

“I don’t.  Why are you still here?  I thought you took a shortcut or something.”

“nah,” you sit down next to them, “they don’t work like that.”  Now that the barrier’s gone, you technically _could_ take one across it, but it would be easier to walk.  They don’t take much energy when you’re following your own timeline, so you usually walk places the first time you go there.

They hum thoughtfully and nod.  “Can I ask you something?”

“sure.”

“How long have you known about the time shit?”

You wonder when this kid started cussing, but you decide not to point it out.  “a couple years.”

“Hm.”

“so,” you say after a little silence, “how long do you plan to sit here before you join the others?”

They shrug.  “I just need a minute.”

“what you need is a nap.” you say.  You aren’t sure how much sleep humans need but you know for a fact that they haven’t slept in the two days they were in the underground.  “when did you last sleep?”

They shake their head.  “Depends.”

“on _what_?”

“How do you count?  My perspective or yours?”

You scoff.  “either way, don’t humans die or something if they don’t sleep?”

They shrug again, and sigh after a moment.  “I can’t let my guard down,” they say, “I don’t know how much you know, but I... I can’t let it happen again.  I won’t.”

Well that’s disturbing.  You guess it was more than a dream after all.  “kid, you’re going to fall asleep eventually.”

“I just need a minute,” they repeat.

When they do stand up, they pass out almost immediately.  You stay with them until they wake up.

* * *

“Hey Sans, can I ask you something?”  You look up from your tinkering to see that Frisk already closed the book they were doing homework in, and is now staring at you.  “It has to do with the time stuff.”

You set the device you’re working with (still trying to make a portable version of the old machine) on the table and lean back.  “sure, kid.  what’s up?”

They look down at their hands nervously.  “Do you know of someone called W. D. Gaster?”

You’re certain you’ve never heard of this person.  Something to do with the blasters?  “no.  why?”

Frisk looks up, startled.  “Really?”

“um, yeah.  really.  why, who is it?”

“...Was.  He’s dead now.”

“oh.”

Frisk is silent for a long moment.  They look confused.  “All I know is that he was the royal scientist before Alphys.  Apparently he created the core, and died when he fell into it.  I think something happened that messed with his timeline.”

“huh.”

* * *

You and Tori are sharing tea in her classroom early one monday morning when you hear a crash in the hallway.  She’s out the door before either of you have time to say anything, and you follow a few seconds behind.  When you reach the door the first thing you see is Frisk, holding what appears to be a knife in their right hand.

“It’s not-” you look toward the sound to see another student, a human in Frisk’s class, “It’s- look, it’s a fake, ok?  It’s just a toy.”

Frisk laughs in a familiar, unsettling way.  “You’d be surprised what a person can do with a plastic knife.” they say, and in a single motion that you think looks practiced and forced at the same time, runs toward the other student and swings the knife at him.

It connects with his arm and he stumbles backward, confused.  You cast your blue magic on Frisk out of instinct before they can move again and put yourself between them and the other human, who backs up farther at your intervention.  Tori runs to his side and you guess she’s looking at his wound.  You turn your attention back to Frisk.

“frisk, what the hell?” you say, not really caring that Toriel just heard you cuss in front of her child.

They look up as though surprised.  “Sorry,” they say, breaking into a smile, “Frisk can’t come to the phone right now.  Can I take a message?”

“...what?”

They laugh again.  “It’s _so_ nice to officially meet you, Sans,” they say, holding out their right hand in an invitation to shake, which you ignore.  “I’m the demon possessing your kid’s body.”  They pause for a second, waiting for you to react, before retracting their hand and returning the knife to it (which they had switched to their left hand).

You’re about to say something when they suddenly look down.  “Frisk, calm down, I’m not going to do anything bad, I promise.”  They pause for a sec like they’re listening to someone.  “That’s _different_.  He had it coming.  Also, I never promised not to hurt humans.”  They cross their arms and listen again. “Frisk!  I am _shocked_ and _offended_ that _that_ is your opinion of me!” they say, laughing, “Heh, I thought it was a _little_ funny.  Look, I’ll give it back in a sec, there’s just one little thing I wanna tell Sans while I’m here.”

“what?” you say, and they look you in the eye again, dropping their smile.

“I know who W. D. Gaster was.  When you’re ready to learn the truth, just let Frisk know and I’ll be there.”  Their smile returns in response to your confusion, and you remind yourself not to believe them.

“and why should I trust _you_?” you ask flatly.

They laugh.  “Let me ask you something.  Do you know where that metal plate on your right hand came from?”

“wha-”

“Because I do.”  They smile at you one more time before closing their eyes.  “Ok, Frisk, I’m done,” they say, letting the toy knife fall to the floor.  “Try not to pass out this time, okay?”

Frisk opens their eyes, grabs their right wrist forcefully with their left hand, and falls to their knees the moment you release your blue magic.  You hear Toriel move behind you.

“Frisk?” she says, and they look up at her suddenly, eyes wide.

“Mom,” they say, barely above a whisper, “Mom, I... I didn’t...” they look down, “S-sorry.  I... I’m sorry.  I should’ve... I...”  They’ve started shaking, and Toriel steps forward to comfort them.  “I slipped... I s- I _swore_ I wouldn’t...  I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.  I-”

Toriel interrupts by hugging them and Frisk melts into the hug, still shaking visibly.

* * *

You let the other human kid go home after Tori heals his wound and you bribe him into saying nothing to anyone, (It doesn’t take much; not all humans are as frugal as Frisk.) and the three of you stay in the classroom until Frisk calms down enough to speak.

“They’re not a demon,” they say, staring at their right hand, “They always say that, but they’re not.  I don’t think they know _what_ they are.  I know _I_ don’t.”

“how long have they been there?” you ask.

“Since I fell.”

“and you never told us because...”

They look up at you, meeting your eyes for the first time in a few hours.  “I thought you knew,” they say, and look down again.  “Sans, how much do you know about the other timelines?”

You sigh and sit on one of the desks.  You’d hoped to avoid the subject around Tori.  “not much.” is all you can say (without mentioning the dreams because you are _not_ going to describe them in front of Toriel).  You have to admit it makes sense, though.  If you’d bothered to pay attention you might have figured it out.  You guess Frisk thought you had.

“In the timeline just before this one,” says Frisk, interrupting your train of thought, “I... _we_... um,” they swallow thickly, “In the first one, everything worked out.  We all got out of the underground, just like this time, and... and then I did something stupid, and selfish, and they got really mad at me for it.  So they took my body, and, um, we killed people.”  They’re staring at their hand again.  “We killed _everyone_.”

There’s a few seconds of silence.  “why?” you ask.

They shrug.  “To see what would happen?  To prove we could?  To get to you, specifically?  I don’t know.”

“why me?”

They laugh.  “Everything’s about you with them.  They either really like you or really hate you.  Possibly both.  You should’ve heard them in the second one, they were so sure you’d break your promise and kill us.  But you didn’t.  And from then on, that’s what it was all about, wasn’t it?”  They look at the ceiling like they’re expecting an answer.  “At first, it was just Papyrus.  And then, it was Mom and Papyrus, and then it was Mom and Papyrus and Undyne and Mettaton, and then it was everyone in our way, and then it was _everyone_.  And they just got more and more determined each time, until it finally worked, and you finally killed us.”

They’ve started shaking again.  Toriel looks at you with an expression you can’t read and stands up to comfort them.  They flinch ever so slightly at her touch.

“Mom,” they say, “do you remember that you died?”

“My child,” she says, and hugs them, “...what matters is that you came back.  Everything is alright now, Frisk.”

Frisk, after a moment, hugs her back.

* * *

Toriel puts the kid to bed and comes to the living room.  She sits down and takes her cold tea off the coffee table, sipping it, looking pensive.  You decide not to interrupt whatever train of thought she’s having.

Eventually, she speaks.  “Sans,” she says, “Frisk is left handed.”

“i know,” you say.

“That means the other one is right-handed, yes?  They held the toy in their right hand.”

“sure.”

“So,” Toriel sips her tea, “in the dreams...”

“you have them, too?” you interrupt.

Toriel nods.  “In the dreams, why did they so often fight with their left hand?”

You can’t think of an answer to that.  Toriel finishes her tea and stands up.

“Well,” she says, “I suppose I shouldn’t worry over it.  I’m sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation.”

“i hope so.”


	7. The Missing Pieces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, sorry for the delay. Holidays are busy.

[Chara]

* * *

The underground feels just as big as it did when you died, which is not very.  Frisk walks straight to the room where they first fell and stares at your grave for a moment.  
****

“Alright,” they say, “that should be far enough.”

You don’t have a chance to ask what they mean by that before they sit down, crosslegged, and recede entirely from their body, leaving you in control.  If you’d been standing, you would have fallen over from the shock.  It takes you a second to remember to breathe.

“What?” you ask, barely sure that Frisk is there at all.

 _“I’m tired,”_ they reply.  _“As long as you don’t leave the underground, and don’t kill anyone, I don’t care.”_

“Well, alright,” you say, standing up and getting used to the ability to move at will again.  You’re surprised they’d be willing to do this, but it makes sense.  The more they fight you the harder it is for them, and they can only go so long before they slip up.  You stare down at your own grave for a moment.  “How long has it been?”

_“Two months.”_

You can’t help but laugh.  “Is that all?” you say, because even though it isn’t half as long as you were in the underground it feels like so much longer since then.

You walk out into the ruins and wonder what you should do.  You head to your mom’s old house and take a detour to look at the mirror before you head toward Snowdin.

“It’s you,” you say.  Frisk laughs.

The only place in Snowdin you can think to go is Sans’ house.  You unlock the door to his lab and go inside.

 _“Seriously?”_ says Frisk when you flick through the coded notes on his desk (definitely Gaster’s cipher), that he left behind along with the machine when he left the underground.  _“What is your obsession with him?”_

“It’s not an obsession.”

_“He’s all you ever talk about.”_

“He’s the only one that isn’t boring.”

_“You knew him before we met, didn’t you?”_

You put the notes down and give up on sifting through them.  “...Yes.  But.  He doesn’t remember Gaster,” you say on the way out of his lab.  “Which means, he might not remember me, either.”

_“Nobody remembers Gaster, Chara.  Why do you care that Sans doesn’t?”_

You head toward the lab in Hotland.  “Because Sans was created by Gaster.”

* * *

The door is locked but it’s no match for determination and a hairpin.  Frisk is disgusted that you know how to pick locks but they don’t try to stop you.  Alphys’ lab is dark and empty, and you take the elevator into the true lab.

 _“What are we doing here?”_ asks Frisk, disturbed.

“It’s easier to show you.  Besides, the amalgamates are living on the surface now, so there’s no danger.”  Unless Gaster’s hanging around in here, but you doubt that.  You equip your knife, though, just in case.

It takes you a long time to find what you’re looking for in the maze of a lab, but when you find a small room with what _could_ pass for a bed and a door that locks from the outside, you know you’re in the right place.

“Once upon a time,” you say to Frisk, as you look for the room his notes will be in, “there was a royal scientist called W. D. Gaster, and he did a lot of bad things that hurt a lot of people.”  You find the room and start looking for clues.  “By the time the king learned of his misdeeds, he was already dead, so the king decided that Gaster would be remembered as an okay guy.  He told the story that his life was cut short when he fell into the core, and the people believed him.”  You start pushing buttons on an ancient computer to see if it will boot.  “The truth is more complicated.  See, Gaster didn’t fall into the _core_.  It was the determination extractor.  And he didn’t _fall_.”  The computer works and pulls up a long list of journal entries written in Gaster’s code.  “He was pushed.”

You start looking around for the key while Frisk thinks about what you said.  You’re not even sure there _is_ a key here, but the one Sans wrote must exist somewhere so you may as well look.

_“What does this have to do with Sans?”_

There are a few ways to answer that.  You decide to go with the least disturbing.  “Sans is the one that pushed him.”  Frisk doesn’t say anything, and you start to give up on finding the key.  “You know, a few months after it happened, he told me he regretted it.”  They don’t seem surprised, which bothers you.  “It doesn’t make sense.  Sans had no reason to let him live.  Killing him was the only way.  But he regretted it.”  And for some reason, the thought makes you angry.  Frisk continues to say nothing and you give up and head toward the exit.

You stop when you reach the determination extractor.  There’s no dust at the bottom of it.  You wonder why.  The design of it reminds you of the blasters and you guess Gaster has a thing for creepy skulls.  It’s no wonder Sans ended up with a permanent smile.

You reach out one hand and touch the surface.  It’s old, but it’s not worn like you expected.  It’s not hard to imagine the power this thing wielded.  “That must have been a pretty painful way to go,” you say, almost without thinking.  “Losing the will to live is bad enough for a human.  For a monster... well.  It’s everything.  Without it...”

You cut yourself off and leave the lab.

* * *

You always seem to find yourself back in the room you shared with Asriel.  You dig through your old stuff to see if there’s anything you’d want to take to the surface with you.  All you find is the old recording of Alphys’ lab from so long ago.  You pick it up.

“Perfect.”

_“Huh?”_

“Now I don’t have to tell Sans anything out loud.  This recording should give him everything he needs to know.”  You think for a second.  “Actually, not everything.  But I can fill in the blanks later.”  You pocket the recording.  “You can give him this so you don’t have to let me in enough to tell him.  Just make sure he doesn’t listen to it without Papyrus.  And probably Alphys.”

_“Why don’t you just tell me so I can tell him?”_

“I already told you, it’s not my secret to tell.  I already said too much today, and he kept _my_ secrets even after I died.”

_“We’ll both find out either way.”_

“Not if you decide not to tell him.”

* * *

After a while, you find yourself staring at your own grave again.  It makes sense, you think, that your mom buried you here.  It’s where you fell, and it’s the only place in the underground where you can see the sky.

“...You probably can’t give him the recording without saying who I am, huh?”

_“...I probably could.”_

You pull out Frisk’s cell phone.  “Why don’t I just tell him now, and save the trouble?”

_“I thought you didn’t want him to know.”_

“I don’t want Mom to know.  Sans, I just want to be the one to tell him.”

_“You’re going to call yourself a demon again, aren’t you?”_

“...If I promise I won’t, will you agree to this?”

Frisk hesitates, but agrees, and you dial Sans’s number with Frisk’s right hand.

It takes him a few rings to pick up.  “sup, frisk.”

“Actually,” you say, “not Frisk right now.”

“...shit.” he says.  You laugh.

“Don’t worry.  They’re just resting.  It’s pretty exhausting for them to fight me the way they’ve been doing, so I pinky-swore I wouldn’t leave the room for a while so they can relax.”

“how do i know you’re telling the truth?”

“You don’t.”

 _“Chara, be nice.”_ thinks Frisk.

 _“Ugh, fine,”_ you reply.

“what do you want?” asks Sans.

“Well,” you say, “I figured it was about time I told you my name.”  He says nothing.  “Promise you won’t freak out?”

“no.”

“That’s fair.”   You take a deep breath.  “It’s Chara.  Chara Dreemurr.”

“...the _fuck_?”

You laugh.  “So you do remember me.  That’s good to hear.”

“how the hell are you here?  wait, no.  you could easily be lying about this.  prove you’re chara.”

You think about it.  “Nah.  Besides, anything I could say that would convince you of that is something you’ve inexplicably forgotten since I died.  I guess I could tell you one of _my_ secrets but the ones Frisk knows aren’t convincing enough and the ones they don’t I’d rather they not.”

That doesn’t pass by Frisk unnoticed, but they don’t say anything.

“...if you really are them,” says Sans taking a deep breath, “why’d you do it?”

“Do what?” you ask.

Sans doesn’t answer.

“The whole killing people thing?”  You take his silence for a yes.  “Actually, Frisk pretty much guessed right.  At first I wanted to get us killed by pissing you off, but it kept not working.  I wanted to see how much it would take.  I guess I got carried away.”  You wait for him to respond but he doesn’t.  “Sorry I didn’t go to hell like I promised, but y’know, it was probably frozen over already.  Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say right now.  Bye.”

You hang up without giving him the chance to say anything.

* * *

“I know you’re there, Asriel.”

The flower pops out of the ground in front of you with a scowl on his face.  “I told you not to call me that.”

“Correction.  You told Frisk not to call you that.”

His scowl is replaced with confusion in record time.  “What do you mean?”

You laugh.  “Don’t you recognize me?”  He doesn’t.  That disappoints you a little.  “I’ll give you a hint,” you say, and show him the creepiest smile you can muster.

He jerks backward, confusion drawing into fear.  “...Chara?”

You relax your smile into something more genuine.  “Nice, you got it on the first guess.”

“But you’re dead!”

“So are you.”

“But...” he inches toward you, as though to get a better look, “Chara, how long have you been there?”

You put your hand to your chin and think for a second.  “A few months?  It depends on whether you count the other timelines, but I’ve been here since Frisk fell.”

“Huh? But that would add less than a day to it, right?”

“Wrong.  You can’t remember all of the resets.  Or, any of them, I guess, since the last one was a true reset...”

You trail off and Asriel doesn’t say anything for a while.  Eventually, he asks, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I tried.  Frisk didn’t want me to.  I think they were scared that if they gave an inch, I’d take over and start killing people again.  Even though I already promised I wouldn’t.”

 _“Last time I let you in you almost killed someone.”_ thinks Frisk.

“Humans aren’t people, Frisk.” you reply, out loud, “Also, he threatened you with a knife.”

_“A fake one.”_

“So what if it was fake?  You’ve seen the damage a human with a plastic knife can do.”  Frisk doesn’t respond.  “Oh, that reminds me, Asriel.  Have you ever heard of someone called W. D. Gaster?”

He tilts his head to one side.  “...No.  Why?”

“Huh.  So whatever happened, it was after we died, and after you came back, but before I did.  That doesn’t narrow it down much.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, it’s not a big deal.  He’s just some asshole that got erased from everyone’s memories for no apparent reason.”

You’re both silent for a long time after that.  You wonder if you’ll have another chance to talk to him.  Probably not.

“Hey, Asriel,” you say, “I know you already know this, but... It wasn’t your fault.”  He looks at you and you avoid his eyes.  “I knew how much of a crybaby you were.  I should never have asked you to kill them.  I should never have expected you to go through with it.”

Frisk seems surprised.  That pisses you off.  Asriel seems even more surprised.  That makes you sad.  Frisk’s phone beeps and you pull it out to see a text from Sans.

*let me know when you’re back, frisk.

“He’s starting to worry, isn’t he.” you say, and stand up.  “Well, we should head back.  See you around, Asriel.”

You step back when you hit the place the barrier used to be and let Frisk walk down the mountain on their own.

* * *

Frisk stops at the bus station and pulls out their phone to check the time.  The next bus arrives in ten minutes, and it’s about a twenty minute ride into town from here.  They pull out their phone and send a text to Sans.

*I’m on my way home now, should be about 30 mins.

He replies almost immediately.

*k.

 _“So,”_ you think when they close their inventory, _“feeling better?”_

Frisk replies a little bitterly, _“As if you care.”_

 _“Of course I care.”_ you say, genuinely offended.

They ignore you in favor of staring at the sky.  It’s late afternoon and there are some clouds out, and Frisk starts looking for shapes in them.

You listen to the conversation of a few people behind you.  Kids around your age, you think, maybe a little older.  Human.

“Hey, is that the kid who freed monsters from the underground?”

“Rumor has it they fought the king of all monsters and won.”

“No way.  Haven’t you seen pictures of that guy?  He’s huge.  There’s no way a shrimp like that could’ve beat him.”  Frisk shudders a little and you guess they’re hearing it too.

“I’ll bet you five dollars I could beat that kid in a fight.”

“I’ll take you up on that bet.”

Frisk sighs.  _“Why don’t you let me handle this?”_ you ask.

_“We’re not killing her, Chara.”_

_“I won’t kill her.  I’ll just threaten her a little, maybe hit her once so she’ll back down.”_

_“No, Chara.”_

_“Ugh, fine.”_

“Hey,” says the girl in question, having walked up to Frisk, “Are you the kid that freed the monsters from the underground?”

“No,” says Frisk, “you must be thinking of my half-brother, Asriel.”

 _“Since when is Asriel YOUR half-brother?”_ you ask.

 _“Quiet.”_ replies Frisk.

“But you’re the fallen human.” says the girl, “The one that supposedly beat the monster king in a fight?”

“I’m not sure how that rumor got started,” says Frisk with a shrug, “but I suppose it couldn’t apply to anyone else.”

The girl nods once and immediately throws a punch in Frisk’s direction.  They dodge with practiced ease and step backward to take a look at their opponent.

You provide your standard assessment.  _“Amanda. 10 ATK 10 DEF.  Thinks she has something to prove.”_

 _“Wow, great.”_ thinks Frisk sarcastically, _“That was so useful, Chara.  I definitely didn’t know all that already.”_

_“Hey, it isn’t easy for me to get people’s names, you know.”_

Amanda attacks again and Frisk steps casually to the side to avoid her.  She looks angry.  _“Five dollars,”_ thinks Frisk, _“Is that 20g? 25?”_

_“Hell if I know.  You suggesting we bribe her into leaving?”_

_“Do you think it would work?”_

_“No.  Besides, monster currency isn’t worth much here.”_

_“Maybe if we buy her dinner.”_

_“You can’t flirt with everyone, Frisk.”_

_“Watch me.”_

* * *

_“She reminds me of someone.”_ thinks Frisk after a solid five minutes of dodging.

 _“Undyne.”_ you reply.

“Hold still, dammit!” screams Amanda.

Her friends get bored and leave.

* * *

Amanda curses and comes at you again, panting.  Frisk steps out of the way and watches her trip on something and fall.  She pulls herself to her knees and you can tell she’s holding back tears.  You see that her arm is a little bloody from where she hit the pavement.  She doesn’t move to attack you again.

Frisk walks up to her timidly.  “Excuse me,” they say, “do you want to know how to beat me?”

Amanda turns to look at you and you can’t help but laugh.  _“That’s it, that’s exactly the face Undyne made.”_

Frisk stubbornly ignores you and holds out their hand to help her up.  She accepts it and stumbles to her feet.  “May I see your arm?” asks Frisk, and she lets them use what little healing magic they know on it.  (It’s nothing compared to what your mom can do, but healing magic isn’t exactly entry-level.)  Amanda looks impressed anyway.  “How does that feel?” Frisk asks, and she moves it around a little.

“Better,” she says.

Frisk smiles.  “Tell you what,” they say, “since I cost you five dollars just now, why don’t we get dinner, on me?”

“...You mean like a date?”  Amanda looks a little grossed out, but she tries not to show it.

“Not if you don’t want it to be,” says Frisk, “I was planning to meet up with a friend soon, he’s friends with the bartender at this local place nearby so we were going to get dinner there.  You want to join us?”

Amanda thinks for a bit and agrees.  Frisk sends a text to Sans.

*Let’s meet at Grillby’s.  I’m bringing a friend.

* * *

Sans, unsurprisingly, is already at the door of the restaurant when you arrive.  Frisk waves at him on their way over (making a point to use their left hand) and he waves back.

“you’re late.” he says.

“Sorry,” replies Frisk, “got a little sidetracked.”  Amanda catches up to you and Frisk turns to face her.  “Amanda, this is my friend Sans.  Sans, Amanda.”

Sans holds out his left hand and Amanda shakes it, detonating the whoopee cushion on his palm.

* * *

You don’t pay much attention to the little meet-and-greet between Frisk, Sans, and Amanda, but it isn’t lost on you the way Sans keeps staring at you, or the way Frisk exaggerates their left handedness whenever he’s looking.

Amanda notices Sans’ behavior during a lull in the conversation, but doesn’t say anything.  Frisk gives Sans a look that you guess is their way of telling him he’s being weird.  He shakes his head.  “i don’t get it.”  Frisk tilts their head to one side.  “frisk,” he says, “how can you be so _calm_ about this?”

“About what?” asks Frisk, and Sans looks at you like they’re talking nonsense, and they continue, “About Amanda?  It’s not like she’s the first-”

“no, frisk.” Sans interrupts, hand on his face, “about chara.”

Frisk looks down at their food.  “We can talk about that later.”

Amanda looks back and forth between the two of you curiously.

“frisk,” says Sans, “were they telling the truth over the phone earlier?”

Frisk nods.  “Every word.  Now can we please talk about something else?”

“you’ll tell me if there’s trouble, right?”

Frisk pauses and considers what they’re going to say for a long moment.  “Seriously?” they finally say, “What are you gonna do, Sans, _fight_ them?”  They wait for him to respond but he doesn’t.  “Why do you care all of a sudden, anyway?  How did you know Chara before we met?”

 _“Good question,”_ you think, _“I wonder if he’ll tell you the truth.”_

 _“Shush.”_ replies Frisk.

Sans thinks for a moment before answering.  “i didn’t.”

“That’s a lie,” says Frisk.

“let me finish,” says Sans.  Frisk waits.  “we met about a month before the buttercup thing.”

Frisk interrupts.  “You _knew_ about the buttercup thing?”

“...i was the first person they told about it,” he admits.

“Before Asriel?” asks Frisk.  He nods.

“i tried to talk them out of it, but... well, you know how they are.”  Frisk nods.  “by the time i thought to tell their parents, it was too late.  they died about a week after they told me.”

“Wait, what?” says Amanda, “Died?”

“Yeah,” says Frisk, “Chara is the soulless husk of my dead half-sibling.  Long story.  Oh, you never answered my question, earlier.”

“Huh?”

“Do you want to learn to fight?  Because the former head of the royal guard just _happens_ to owe me a favor.  I’m sure she’ll teach you if you ask nicely.”

“since when does undyne owe you a favor?” asks Sans.

“Since I delivered a very important letter to Dr. Alphys on her behalf.”

Amanda speaks before Sans can respond.  “Undyne is a good teacher?”

“If his brother is anything to go by,” says Frisk, pointing at Sans, “yes.”

* * *

Undyne glares down at you with her arms crossed, looking contemplative.  “Fine.” she says, before turning to Amanda.  “Alright, punk, let’s see what you’re made of.”

Frisk watches them spar from a safe distance and you notice for the first time that Undyne really isn’t that great at dodging.  She blocks most of Amanda’s attacks and dodges the rest in jerky motions that Frisk’s would put to shame.  Amanda isn’t great at it either, but she’s already better than Undyne.

Someone walks up behind you and Frisk turns to see Sans.

“so,” he says, “can we talk now?”

Frisk turns their head back toward the fight.  “It’s rude to talk about someone who’s listening.” they say.

“well maybe chara needs to learn a thing or two about eavesdropping.” says Sans, walking up beside them.

 _“That’s offensive,”_ you tell Frisk, _“I’m offended.”_

“It’s not like they could leave if they wanted to.” they say, refusing to acknowledge your comment.

“they can’t?” asks Sans.

“Believe me,” replies Frisk, “They would have left a long time ago if they could.”

There’s a moment of silence before Sans asks, “so, what happened earlier today?”

“The whole thing was my idea,” they tell him.  “You see, this whole... thing, whatever’s going on, it’s not supposed to be all-or-nothing like this.  Chara could control one hand while I controlled the other... after a while, I almost forgot where the line between us really was.  That was before we’d really disagreed on anything.”

Frisk breaks for air and Sans speaks.  “it’s hard to imagine you agreeing on much.”

“You might be surprised.  The first time around, when I didn’t even know we _could_ alter the timeline, it was actually their idea to flirt with Papyrus.”

“really?”

 _“I was joking,”_ you say.  Frisk laughs.

“They probably meant it as a prank, though.” they say, “Anyway, my point is that pushing them out like this is pretty tiring.  It makes Chara mad, too, and... not without reason.  This isn’t exactly comfortable for them.”

 _“It’s not that bad.”_ you say.

 _“It hurt like hell when you did it to me.”_ replies Frisk.

_“That’s ‘cause this is your body.  It’s more attached to you.  Also, it hurts less if you don’t struggle.”_

“so,” says Sans, having noticed that Frisk trailed off, “did they stick to your deal?”

Frisk nods.  “Also, they told me something about Gaster.”  Sans looks at you and Frisk doesn’t look back at him.  “They said the story we heard about him falling into the core was a lie Asgore told the kingdom so they didn’t have to know the truth.”

“which is...?”

“They said he was _pushed_.”

Sans seems to consider not asking, but he does.  “who pushed him?”

Frisk takes a deep breath.  “You.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Amanda's character was inspired by a comic that I have since lost track of. I will edit this note if I manage to find it.  
> EDIT: I FOUND IT  
> http://l-nobby-l.tumblr.com/post/131606197025


	8. The Answer to a Question you were Too Afraid to Ask

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "well shit  
> that’s a hell of a mystery no one thought was a mystery and didn’t even really need solving  
> but damn if it didn’t just get solved so nice work"  
> -Dave Strider, Homestuck

[Sans]

* * *

The audio in the recording cuts out after Alphys had apparently turned it off.  Now Frisk picks up the wire and sits back down, silencing the static that followed.

Papyrus and Alphys both look at you.  Frisk looks like they’re talking to Chara.

You sigh.  Why can’t any of your nightmares just be dreams?  You wonder if that one about the spider you had ten years ago is also going to turn out to be true.

Frisk is the first to speak.  “That wasn’t nearly as informative as I was expecting,” they say.  You nod.  They think for a second before they go on.  “I wasn’t going to do this, but you know, I’m pretty curious, too.  I’m gonna let Chara talk to you directly.”

“are you sure?” you ask.  They nod.

“They’ve been behaving.  It’ll be fine,” they say, but they look to Alphys and Papyrus for confirmation. The two of them only found out about Chara earlier today, so they look reasonably disturbed, but neither of them object.

“Alright,” says Frisk, “Here goes.”

They close their eyes and open them again with a deep breath and a long stretch.  “Hi, Sans.” they say.

“chara.”

“Not in the mood for civilities?  That’s fine.  So, who wants to hear a story?”

Papyrus raises his hand.  Chara laughs and leans backward.

“One upon a time,” they say, “there was a royal scientist named Wing Din Gaster.  He was known throughout the underground for his brains and his abilities.  He finished the CORE, his crown achievement, a few weeks after I fell.  People thought of him as the unassuming sort - smart, quiet, kept to himself, mostly.  He didn’t like anyone going into his lab, and no one thought that was weird at all.  He just liked his privacy, people would say.  My dad trusted him completely.”

Chara’s smile widens and they look at Alphys.  “Then, one day, the young Alphys who had just finished building Metaton and was working on a doctorate, earned an internship under Gaster.  He didn’t let her into his _real_ lab, but she was close enough to him that it wasn’t long before she became suspicious.  Only a few weeks after she started working with him, she went to the royal guard and _insisted_ that she’d heard something through the walls of his lab.  Something like screaming.”

You and Papyrus look at Alphys, who’s face has gone pale.  Chara keeps going.

“Her claims were disregarded, of course.  Gaster was trusted entirely by the people, and Alphys was known for going weeks without sleep sometimes.  People reasoned that she must have been hearing things that weren’t there.  And that was that, until two months later.  It was a... Wednesday.  Wednesday night.  Gaster had gone home for the day, and Alphys decided to investigate on her own.”  Chara breaks from the story and says, “Now, I’ve only heard this part of the story second-hand, so there are probably parts that the people who told me left out.  But here’s what I know.”

They slip back into their narrator-voice.  “Alphys snuck into Gaster’s lab and started looking through the first room she came across.  She found an operation table with leather straps on it, and a few other things that didn’t quite belong.  A hammer, a chisel, a buzz saw... the tools of important science work, surely.”

Chara laughs.  “Needless to say, she was a little freaked out.  She found the feed from the security cameras.  Nearby was a tiny room with two skeletons in it, clearly being held against their will.  She found the controls for the door and opened it remotely.  Then, she called Undyne, a member the royal guard.  Once Undyne was on her way, she went looking for the skeletons.”

They sigh, searching their memory.  “I don’t know what happened next in too much detail, but soon after Alphys found them, Gaster arrived at the lab.  He’d set up an alarm to tell him if someone entered his lab, and he was determined to stop them from leaving.  Around this time, Undyne finally arrived as well.  There was a fight, and Sans managed to push Gaster into the determination extractor, and he turned it on.”

Chara stretches again.  “So that’s the story of how W. D. Gaster died.  I’m not sure how he was forgotten.  Something probably happened after I died.  Or maybe it was more gradual.  Either way, that’s pretty much all I know.  Any questions?”

You raise a hand.  “i have one.”

“Yes?”

“how do you know all this?”

“Eavesdropping, mostly.” they reply, “You told me some of it.”

“rude.”

“I suppose, but I don’t think I’ll be losing any sleep over it."

* * *

You get the text late one Saturday afternoon, immediately preceded by a sudden feeling that time had shifted.  You open it to find that it’s from Frisk.

*How fast can you get here?

You have to think about it.  Frisk is at some official-sounding meeting on the other side of the country (part of their duties as ambassador) and you don’t really have a fast way to get there, but the handheld machine of yours could get you there if you find an object to trace.  The problem is finding something.  You text back.

*give me two hours.

Frisk replies almost immediately.

*Papyrus could be dead by then.

Well shit.  You pull yourself out of bed and text back on your way into the living room.

*give me five minutes.

* * *

*i’m here.

You send the text as you walk up to the building.  It’s the edge of sunset here, and the light reflects off the windows in red and orange so that you can’t quite see in.  Frisk replies after a minute.

*Great.  I need you to make sure nobody comes in through the back door.

*If something happens, pull the fire alarm.

You head towards the back entrance and text back.

*k.

* * *

You test the handle and find that the door is locked, before leaning against the wall next to it.  You feel like you’ve done this before.  You probably have.

It’s cold - not the way Snowdin is cold, with soft edges and languid hospitality, but with a sharpness to it that gnaws at the edges of your vision and lingers in the back of your mind.  Before long, someone walks up the the door and reaches to try the handle.  You call out to them.

“sorry, kid,” you say, even though they look like a young adult, “the door’s locked.  you’ll have to go around front.”

They look up suddenly, not having noticed you before.  They test the handle anyway and curse when it doesn’t give.  “I have to get through here.”

“you late for something?”

“Very.”  They try the handle again.

“the front door works, as far as i know,” you say, “if you hurry i bet you could make it.”

“No time.” they say, and they pull out a gun.

“woah,” you say, “lets not be brash.”

“Relax.  I’m just going to shoot the lock out.”

“you’re going to break into a government building.”

“Yes.” they aim the gun.  You shortcut it back into their belt before they can fire.  “The hell?”

“sorry, i’m not just gonna stand here and watch while you do that.”  The kid scowls and draws the gun again, this time aiming it at you.  You shortcut it back again.  “pretty sure you don’t want to fight me, kid.”

“I will if I have to,” they grumble, reaching for the gun again.

You shortcut it back one more time.  “This is your last warning.”

The kid starts to reach for it again, but hesitates, apparently having heard the seriousness in your tone.  They curse and run back toward the front entrance.  You don’t follow them, but you do shortcut the gun out of their belt as they go, letting it fall harmlessly to the ground, unnoticed.

* * *

Some time later, you don’t keep track of how long, the door opens from the inside.  Frisk steps out, closing it gently behind them, and checks their watch, never meeting your eyes.

“Three... two... one...”

You jump at the sound - a _bang_ that rebounds on the inside of your skull - and turn to see the windows of the building, glowing red with fire rather than sunlight.  Frisk doesn’t even flinch, but you notice how they wrap their clothes around them (formal wear - they have a robe much like the ones Toriel wears) and cover their face with their hair (the way Chara used to).

Seconds pass like hours.  They lean their back against the door and sink to the ground, curling up into a ball at the base of it, burying their head between their knees.

“Three dead.  Seven injured.” they say.  You sit down next to them.

“human extremists?” you ask.  They nod.

“My fault.”

“what?”

“Looking for me.  If I could’ve just _died_...”

“don’t say things like that.”

“Three people are dead.”

“and nothing you did could’ve changed that.”

They curl tighter around themself.  “I killed them.”

“frisk.”  You know they’re not being literal, their EXP is still at 0, but pointing that out won’t make it better.  “if you really think you could have saved them, why haven’t you gone back?”

“I did.  The others were all worse.”

You wrap an arm around them in an awkward approximation of a hug.  “you can’t save everyone.”

“I know.”

You’re both silent for a long moment.  You can hear sirens in the distance, coming closer.  Frisk shivers from the cold.

“Five hundred and eighty six in the underground,” they mutter to themself, or maybe to Chara, “plus nineteen just now, that’s six hundred and five.”  They release a bitter laugh.  “Is that a milestone?  We never did celebrate five hundred.  Though at the time it was more like two hundred and eighty-six, since we were in the middle of fighting Sans.”  They pause, listening.  “Three hundred and sixty-nine.  Why?”  Another pause.  “Well, he wasn’t really counting, just reading our expression... well that’s what he _said_.  Of course I believe it.  Do you think we’d still _be_ here if he actually remembered?  Dreams don’t count, Chara.”

“are you talking about me?” you say because wow, that’s kind of rude.

They look up at you, suddenly.  “Did I say all that out loud?”

“yeah.”

“Sorry.”

“what were you talking about?”

They take a long second to think before they answer, avoiding your eyes.  “You stopped counting after eleven.”

“counting what?”

“The number of times I died trying to kill you.”

“...oh.”

“At twelve, you started just saying, let’s get to the point, and that was that, but I counted.  All the way through to the end.  Three hundred and seventy-four times.  More than half the times I died, total.  If anything could’ve worked...” they sigh.  “Well, you’ve heard this story before.  It doesn’t matter, anyway.  I can’t die.  Not really.”

“you say that like you’ve tried to.”

“I have.”  They look up at the smoke above you.  “That’s why Chara got mad at me in the first place.  I thought it would work.  I thought... we both thought I would just die.  And I would’ve taken them with me.”

All you can think to say is, “do you regret it?”

Frisk thinks about it for a long moment.  “No.  I wouldn’t have done it, knowing what I know now, and everything went to shit because of it.  It’s the worst decision I ever made.  But... but I don’t regret it.  Not really.”  They look at the sky a little longer, wistfully, before they ask, “What are your dreams like?”

“the nightmares?” you ask.  They nod.  “cold.  and dark.  they don’t feel like memories, but they don’t really feel like dreams, either.  it’s like... like hearing a tune you’re familiar with, but distorted, and distant, just out of reach.”  You take your right hand out of your pocket and finger the metal plate idly.  “it’s funny, trying to remember something that doesn’t want to be remembered.  it scatters at the slightest touch.”

“Chara says you sound like him.”

“who, gaster?”

“Yeah.”

“is that an insult?”

“Well, it’s no _compliment_.”

“then tell ‘em i said something witty in response.”

“You know they can hear you, right?”

“i do _now_.” you say, but you and Frisk both know that you already knew that.  They laugh.  You’re glad.

“Oh,” they say, after a moment, “Chara wants me to tell you something.”

“what is it?”

Frisk scrunches up their face in confusion.  “They said, and I’m quoting verbatim here, I wish I could say it’s _knife_ seeing you again, but I really think you’ve lost your _edge_.”

They look at you with an expression that reads like a question.  You force yourself to relax.  “...heh, good one.” you say, “and here i thought they wouldn’t want to talk about that.”

“They said they don’t, but they wanted to see if you remembered.  Remembered what?”

“why would i have forgotten?”

“...They said, ‘it wasn’t ketchup.’”

“no, it wasn’t.”  It takes you a second to realize the implications of that.  “...oh.”

“What was it?”

“...frisk, do you know what color determination is?”

“Um, no?  I’d never thought about it.”

“well, think about it.  if you had to guess, what color would you say it is?”

Frisk thinks, looking back at the sky.  “Red.”

“that’s right.”

“Chara thinks that’s dumb.”

“it is.”

“What are you two talking about, anyway?  What wasn’t ketchup?”

“it was determination.”

“Yes, but-”

“ask chara what they thought it was.”

“...They say they didn’t know.  At first they thought it was blood, but-” they interrupt themself with a gasp, “Wait, you mean... red and gold.  That’s what you meant.  You _knew_.”

“knew what?”

“When I- when we killed you, it looked like you bled from your wound.  Chara knew that would happen.  How...?”  They stop, shaking their head.  “No, we can worry about this later.”  They stand up and offer you a hand.  “Let’s go find your brother.”


	9. The Angel of Death and Other Soothing Bedtime Stories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Would we be willing to give up joy if it meant being rid of pain?  
> Light if it meant being rid of darkness?”  
> \- ozy and millie http://ozyandmillie.org/2002/11/30/ozy-and-millie-1044/
> 
> Flashback time!

[Chara]

* * *

Frisk doesn’t resist when you walk through the golden hallway.  They stopped fighting back a long time ago.  Somehow, that makes it worse.

Sans greets you, as he always does, with a fake smile and some words about what a shitty person you are.  “kids like you should be burning in hell.” he says.  You wonder if he recognizes you.

Frisk dodges his attacks and lets you attack him and they say nothing and do nothing else until he offers you mercy, at which point they burst into tears and you have to drag their stubborn ass into a standing position and attack again.

On the eleventh try, he decides to stop counting.  Frisk counts for him.

On the fiftieth try, Frisk starts helping you fight.

On the hundredth try, you stop helping Frisk fight.

On try one-hundred and eighty-seven, he falls asleep.

You can feel Frisk’s anger as they sneak up on him to deliver the final blow.  Adrenaline rushes through your body.  They raise the knife...

He looks so small.

You remember watching him fall asleep on the castle grounds one day.  You remember how his brother picked him up and carried his lazy ass back to their house.

If you cut him again... will he bleed?

You don’t want to find out.

You _can’t_ find out.

You _won’t_.

You grab the knife in Frisk’s right hand and bring it harshly toward your gut.

Frisk stumbles backward in shock, their footsteps waking Sans.  He steps backward but otherwise does and says nothing.  Frisk forces you to let go of the knife and pulls it out with their left hand.  The wound isn’t deep - it won’t kill them unless they bleed out without healing - but they have no intention to heal.

“Chara,” they say, as though they’d forgotten you were there, “what...?”  They drop the knife and fall to their knees, clutching the wound.  “Now?  _Here?  This_ is where you draw the line?!”  They swallow thickly.  “Not at... Toriel?  Papyrus?  That... kid back in waterfall?  But with _HIM_?”  They cough.

You don’t say anything.

There’s nothing to say.

Frisk laughs.

“Just a little farther... a little more... it could have been _over_.  We could have destroyed _everything_ in this world...”  They hold up their right hand and look at it.  “Together.”  They collapse a little farther into the ground.  “I thought... that’s what... you wanted.”

Their soul fractures.

Sans steps forward, as though anything _he_ did could save them now.

The soul splits in half, clean down the middle.  You brace yourself.

...

But it refused.

Frisk reaches for the knife, left handed, shaking.  Sans steps back.

Frisk swallows and takes a shaky breath.  “No.  I don’t care... if this wasn’t...what you were expecting...”  They find their feet and stand, leaning forward, clutching their still-bleeding wound.  “It’s what you fucking _asked_ for.  And I.  Don’t.  _LOSE_.”

They attack Sans with everything they have.  You try to stop them but they push you out.  You bang and scream on the inside of their head.  They ignore you.  Sans doesn’t last long.

...

“that expression that you’re wearing...”

“well, I won’t grace it with a description.”

...

“that expression...”

“you’re really kind of a freak, huh?”

...

Attempt three hundred and seventy four.

You’ve killed him, what, five times, now?

Frisk stares at the blood on the knife for a moment.  It’s not really blood, but whatever.  They finally give up on trying to follow him, wherever he went, and step into the next room.

They walk past the save point without touching it.

Killing your dad is easy.

Killing your brother, not so much.

Frisk does it for you.

...

“Interesting.”

“You want to go back.”

“You want to go back.”

“To the world.”

“You destroyed.”

...

“You think you are above consequences.”

Frisk nods.

“Exactly.”

...

“You still have something I want.”

“Give it to me.”

...

Despite everything.

Their soul is still warm when you reach out to it.

* * *

_“Knight to D-4.”_

_“That’s not a legal move.”_

_“Shit, it isn’t?  Why not?”_

_“It puts your king in check, see?”_

_“Ugh, this game is confusing.  Bishop to H-5.”_

Frisk moves the bishop and then captures it with one of their rooks. _“Checkmate.”_

_“God damn it.”_

_“Chara, have you ever actually played this game before?”_

_“Well... no.”_

_“Heh, no wonder you’re confused.  Here, let’s start over and I’ll go over the rules.”_

* * *

_“What’s wrong?”_ asks Frisk as you walk through a familiar part of town.

_“Huh?  What makes you think something’s wrong?”_

_“You’re being quiet.”_

_“It’s nothing.  I just don’t like this place.  That’s all.”_

_“What’s wrong with it?”_

You don’t answer.  It’s not like they’ve told _you_ anything about _their_ past.  You can’t help but shudder as they pass the street you used to live on.

* * *

A shout rings out across the playground - a name Frisk recognizes, and a voice they know, neither of which are familiar to you.  Frisk takes off running.  The name is called again, and the voice follows you down the street.  Frisk curses mentally, looking for a place to go.

 _“Who is that?”_ you ask.  They don’t answer you, instead ducking into the nearest hiding place.

The voice arrives shortly after, it’s wielder - a human - searching the area and finding Frisk.  Frisk puts a finger to their mouth to stop the other person from saying the name again.  They comply, walking up to Frisk and crouching next to them.

“What the hell happened?” they ask Frisk in a whisper, “Where have you been?  I thought you were dead!”  Frisk starts to answer, but they keep going.  “You were gone for _months_.  What...”  A look of understanding crosses their face and they curse.  “He _did_ something, didn’t he.  That bastard, next time I see him I swear to god...” they move to stand up and Frisk stops them, shaking their head.

“He thinks I’m dead,” they say, “Please, just let him think that.”

The other one relaxes a bit.  “What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter.  I’m okay now.  I have a new home, and a mom and everything.  I even have a name of my own.”

“You do?  What is it?”

“Frisk.  Frisk Dreemurr.”

“Frisk.  That’s a nice name.  Did you come up with it yourself?”  Frisk nods.  “Well, alright.  If you’re sure, then I’ll stay out of it.  Just... you know you can come to me for help, right?”

“I do.  But I really am okay.”  They stand up.  “I’ll see you around, Alex.”

“...Yeah.  See you, Frisk.”

The other human, Alex, walks away and Frisk sighs.

 _“They won’t tell him,”_ they think, _“right?”_

 _“I really wouldn’t know,”_ you reply.  _“Frisk, I never asked you about this because it’s really none of my business and I mean, it’s not like_ _you_ _know the reason_ _I_ _climbed Mt. Ebbot, but-”_

_“Stop.  I don’t want to talk about it.  Besides, he won’t come back.  They won’t tell him.”_

_“Are you sure?  Frisk, should we load our last save?”_

Frisk thinks really hard about it for a second.  _“No.  I trust them.”_

* * *

“I don’t know what’s weirder,” says Amanda, walking up behind you, “that you’re playing chess against yourself, or that you appear to be losing.”

“Actually,” Frisk tells her, “I’m playing against the voice in my head.  And I’m white.”

“Oh.  Right, ‘cause that makes so much more sense.”

Frisk shrugs and moves a white pawn.

 _“Oh,”_ you say, _“So now I’m a voice in your head, and not the ‘soulless husk of your dead half sibling?’  I think you’re giving that human mixed messages.  Knight to H-4.”_

 _“Oh hush,”_ they reply, moving your knight and then one of theirs.  _“Check.”_   They ignore your cussing and look up at Amanda.  “So how’d it go?”

“You weren’t kidding about Undyne.”  She laughs a little.  “But it’s going well I think.”

_“King to D-5”_

Frisk moves your piece.  “That’s good.”

“Can I play winner?” asks Amanda.

“Sure” replies Frisk, capturing your last pawn.

 _“In that case,”_ you say, _“I forfeit.”_

_“That’s no fun.”_

_“I have like three pieces left.”_

_“Give me, like, two more moves.”_

_“Ugh, fine.  King to D-6.”_

_“Check.”_

_“King to D-7.”_

_“Checkmate.”_

_“Finally.”_

Frisk laughs and starts to reset the board.  Amanda sits across from them and helps.

“Is it true what they say?” she asks.

“Depends,” says Frisk, “What do they say?”

“That you once beat Undyne in a fight.”

Frisk focuses on aligning the pieces for a moment.  “By some definition of ‘beat’, sure.”

“What happened?”

“Well, you know the big parts, right?  Seven human souls and all that?”

“Yeah.”

“If you think Undyne’s scary _now_ , you should see her with three hundred pounds of armor, utterly convinced that killing you is the only way to free monsterkind.  There was no _fight_.  I ran like hell until I reached Hotland and she collapsed from the heat.”

“They say you beat the king, too.”

“I honestly have no idea how that rumor started.  We were both _going_ to fight, but Mom showed up and stopped him before anything could happen.”

 _“We did actually fight them both, though,”_ you remind them.

_“Do you think I’ve forgotten?”_

_“I know you’d like to.”_

“Huh,” says Amanda, “I wonder how that would’ve turned out.”

“Badly.” Frisk replies, “I was planning to throw the match.”

* * *

Napstablook peeks nervously around the curtain and Frisk walks up behind them.

“Nervous?”

“Oh, don’t worry about me.  I always get like this before shows.”

“You’ll do great.”

“Thanks.”  Napstablook smiles, but they still seem uneasy.

“You know, it’s funny.”  Frisk says, leaning on a nearby wall, “Of all the monsters I’ve met, I think you underestimate yourself the most.”

“What makes you say that?”

Frisk laughs a little.  “You survived the damn apocalypse and didn’t even notice.”

“What...?” Napstablook inches away from the curtain.

“Remember that flash of light back in the underground, ‘round the time the barrier was destroyed?”

“Yeah, everyone knew your name after except for me...”

“You could’ve died.  Everyone else did.  They all came back because of time shenanigans but you...”  They give another chuckle.  “The angel of death knocked on your window and you closed the blinds and went back to mixing music.”  They smile at Napstablook.  “If you can do that, you can do anything.”

 _“That’s one hell of an oversimplification,”_ you say.

 _“It works.”_ Frisk replies, leaving Napstablook for now.

_“Ready to perform onstage for the first time?  I wonder if he’ll kill us by accident.”_

_“Don’t be morbid.  Besides, he couldn’t even kill us on purpose.  Not even in the first one.”_

_“But you won’t be expecting it this time.”_

_“You will.”_

* * *

The show goes off without a hitch.  Monsters and humans alike, but mostly monsters, turn out in the hundreds to watch you and Mettaton perform.  Frisk dodges his stage attacks expertly, not a single hit landing on them, which is good because your mom is in the crowd somewhere.

Everyone meets for dinner afterward - a fancy meal courtesy of the (relocated) MTT Resort.  Frisk digs in almost immediately after they receive their food, all but ignoring the praise your family offers them regarding the performance.

Their face reflexively scrunches up.  The food tastes horrible.  _“What the fuck?”_ they think, _“Did Papyrus make this?”_

 _“No,”_ you tell them, _“it’s a different kind of awful.”_

 _“Is this just what fancy food tastes like?”_ they think, watching the others eat like nothing’s wrong.

_“I think it’s a problem with just ours.”_

They grumble internally and take another bite.

_“I don’t think you should be eating that.”_

_“I’m not going to be rude.”_

_“Frisk I’m serious something’s wrong.”_

They ignore you and keep eating.

You would recognize this taste anywhere.  _“Dammit Frisk listen.”_

 _“I’m not going to be rude,”_ they repeat.

_“It’s buttercups.”_

Frisk’s chewing stills for a moment.  _“What?”_

_“I don’t know how but I would recognize the taste anywhere.”_

They think for a moment and swallow.  _“There’s no way.”_

_“Do you think I’m lying?”_

_“No, I know you don’t lie, but...”_   They take another bite.  _“Still.  A lot of things taste like shit.  I can’t count on you knowing one kind of shit from another.”_

For the first time in months, you try to stop them by force.  They shove you down harder.

_“I am not going to be rude.”_

* * *

_A memory:_

_You bite into the hot dog Sans gave you and lean back in your seat, watching the crowd.  Next to you, Sans takes a bite of his own hot dog and grins unconvincingly.  “Hey, Sans?” you say.  He turns to look at you.  “If you could forget everything, about Gaster and the lab, would you?”_

_He thinks on it a minute.  “i don’t know.”_

_You laugh a little.  “I would forget the surface in a heartbeat if I could.”_

_“is it really that simple, though?  you must have at least one good memory from before you came here.”_

_You think on it.  “A few, I guess.  I used to pick flowers, when no one was looking.  My village has these bright yellow flowers with seeds that just get everywhere.  I used to spread them around as much as I could... but that doesn’t make any of it worthwhile.”_

_“i never said it did, but y’know... sometimes even bad memories are worth hanging on to.”_

_“But what if there are no good ones?  I can’t imagine you have any of Gaster.”_

_“you’d be surprised.”  He laughs a little bitterly.  “it wasn’t always needles and buzz saws with him.  when papyrus and i were little... well.  he’s the one who taught us to read and write.  and, he was all we had.  papyrus really liked him at first.  but, you know, that was before.”_

_You nod.  “Doesn’t that just make it hurt more?  The betrayal of it?”_

_“not really.  it gave papyrus hope, at least.  he was always so determined to convince him to stop.  no matter what gaster did, paps would just turn around and forgive him for it.  i think it really got to him, after a while.”_

_“But it didn’t work.”_

_“it kinda did, though.  if he’d been sure of himself, that little fight could’ve turned out a lot worse.  he was always a little hesitant.  i bet papyrus said something that got to him, before we got back.”_

_“So, is that your answer?  You wouldn’t forget?”_

_He shrugs.  “Nah.”_

* * *

Frisk rolls over in their hospital bed and takes a sip of the water from the glass on the bedstand.  You jerk at their arm angrily to make them spill.  They sigh and put the glass down.

 _“Do you believe me now?”_ you ask, _“Or are you going to google the symptoms first?  Get a second opinion?  Maybe ask the doctor if he’s REALLY sure?”_

“Oh, hush.”

_“Don’t you fucking hush me!  I tried to fucking warn you but NO.  You-”_

“i didn’t say anything.”  Frisk turns, startled, to see Sans sitting on the fold-out chair by the bed.

“Didn’t see you there,” they say.

“i noticed,” he replies, “chara bothering you?”

They nod.  You hiss at them.  They scowl.

Sans laughs.  “so, any word from the doctor?”

Frisk nods after a moment.  “Buttercups.”

“shit, really?”

Frisk reaches for the water again.  “It was in the food at that fancy dinner.  Chara tried to warn me and I ignored them, which is why they’re mad now.”

 _“Well at least you’re not lying about it.”_ you say.

“but...” Sans slouches even farther than he had been, furrowing his eyebrows. “how?  why??”

Frisk stares at the water before they put it down.  “Someone knows.”

Sans is quiet for a minute.  “did you tell anyone else?”

Frisk shakes their head.  “I mean, Flowey knows, and he may hate me but he doesn’t have the means to do this and he wouldn’t have told anyone else.  Did you?”

“no.”

Frisk lies back down.  “Well, we can worry about it later.  Whoever it was, they weren’t trying to kill me.  I think they just did it to prove they could.”

“that isn’t very comforting.”

Frisk shrugs.

* * *

_Your hands are covered in blisters and your throat stings like you’re swallowing fire and you keep eating because it isn’t enough to kill you, not yet.  Your brother looks on apprehensively and you ask him if he trusts you and he says yes, always.  You lie down and stand up again and there’s fur growing on your blistered hands and another person in your body and you kick and scream and tell him that he said he trusted you and he says I know I’m sorry and you don’t forgive him.  The humans descend on you like a black fog and suffocate you and you cough and spit and wash the blood off your face in the river and look into it to see your reflection and Frisk smiles back up at you._

* * *

You wake up with a start and Frisk follows, groggily blinking their eyes open.

 _“Another nightmare?”_ they ask.

 _“Yeah,”_ you tell them, _“Sorry.”_

They shrug.  _“It’s not like I don’t wake you sometimes.  Don’t worry about it.”_   It’s true, you never get much sleep between the two of you.  Frisk doesn’t ask about your dream and you don’t tell them.  They look around the room and notice someone sitting by the bed.

They laugh.  “Well, this is familiar.”

“You’re awake.”  You recognize this person now - it’s Alex, the kid you met a few weeks ago.

“And you’re here, for some reason.”

Alex shrugs.  “Came to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m fine,” says Frisk, sitting up, “How’d you get in?” they say, and ask you, _“Don’t they have, like rules that only family members can visit or something?”_

 _“Hell if I know,”_ you reply.

Alex answers.  “I told them I was your sibling.  Hospitals are so trusting.”

“You’re quoting something.” says Frisk, “and you probably snuck in.”

“I wouldn’t call it sneaking.  It’s not like they have guards or anything.”

“How’d you know what room I was in?”

“Simple.  I checked every room consecutively until I got to yours.”  Frisk laughs.  Then they cough, because wow your throat feels like shit.  Alex hands them the water and they take a long drink.  “What ended you up here, anyway?  The news was vague.”

Frisk nods.  “I asked them to be.  No reason to scare people.”

“What happened?”

“Someone poisoned my food at this fancy party we had.”

Alex is silent for a moment and you use the pause to talk to Frisk.  _“You trust them enough to tell them that?”_

_“Yeah.”_

“Who?” asks Alex.

“Don’t know yet.  I have some theories, but... we’re not getting the police involved, anyway.”

“How come?”

“Well, whoever it was, they weren’t trying to kill me.  They just wanted to send a message.”

“How do you know?”

“Buttercups are a pretty shitty way to try and kill someone.”  Frisk stretches and yawns.  “But let’s talk about something less depressing.”

Alex nods.  “Oh, I almost forgot,” they say, reaching under their chair, “I brought you something.”  They stand up and hand Frisk a book, which they take in their left hand and turn over gently, eyes wide.

“You kept it,” they say.

“Yeah,” Alex rubs the back of their neck, “Thanks again for letting me borrow it.  Figured it’s about time I gave it back, heh.”

“You didn’t have to-”

“Of course I did.”

Frisk smiles.  “Thank you.”

* * *

“Before I go,” Alex says after a few hours, “I, uh, wanted to ask you something.”

Frisk sits up a little warily, “What kind of something?”

“You don’t have to answer, but... what happened?  Did you run away?  Did he...?”

Frisk looks back down at the closed book.  “There’s not much to say.”  They hesitate a moment before showing Alex the scar on their left arm.  “He gave me this and said not to come back.”  They shrug.  “I took a hint.”

Alex is silent for a long moment.  “I’m gonna kill him.”

“Please don’t.”

_“I’ll help”_

_“Chara no.”_

“He’d deserve it,” says Alex.

Frisk shakes their head.  “That’s not a good enough reason.”

Alex sighs.  “I know.”

* * *

The book is old and weathered, hardcover, with wrinkled, dog-eared pages and phrases underlined in pencil.  You read the title.  _“Harry Potter?”_

_“Yeah.  This was my favorite book when I was little.”_

_“It’s old.”_

Frisk nods.  _“It belonged to my birth mother.”_

_“Huh.”_

_“Chara?”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Will you read it to me?”_

You consider it for a moment.  _“Sure.”_

* * *

Frisk pulls out their phone around midday and dials a number you don’t recognize.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Burgerpants!”

“Oh!  Hi, little buddy.”

“How’s it going?”

“You know.  The usual.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Well, I haven’t lost hope, little buddy.  I applied to one of those human acting schools.  If I sell all my belongings and work extra hours for a few years, I should be able to afford it.”

“That’s great!  Are you still working at MTT Resort?”

“Yup.  I’m doing more work in the kitchen now, so I don’t have to deal with customers as much.  Let me tell you, it’s a lot better this way.”

“Awesome.  Look, I need a favor.”

“...What kind of favor?”

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Of course I _can_.”

“I’ll put in a good word for you with that girl you like.”

“...Really?  Alright, then.  What can I do for you?”

“First, you have to promise not to mention this to anyone, okay?  Not Mettaton or Asgore or Bratty and Catty or _anyone_.  Okay?”

“Don’t worry, little buddy, your secret’s safe with me.”

“Thanks.”  Frisk takes a deep breath before continuing.  “I need a complete list of everyone who was working with the food at the party last night.  Kitchen staff, delivery people, waitstaff, everyone.  Can you do that for me?”

“Sure thing.  What do you need it for?”

“Long story.”

“...Alright.  I’ll call you when I have the list.”

“Thanks, BP.”

* * *

“Hey, Flowey, I have a question for you.”

Asriel appears in the throne room, looking at you skeptically.  “What is it?”

“Does anyone other than you, me, Chara, and Sans know about the buttercups?”

“No.”

Frisk nods, having expected that answer, and digs the handwritten list out from their pocket.  “Do you know anyone on this list?”

Flowey looks it over for a minute.  “Frisk, I know _all_ of these people.”

“Is it possible that any of them know?”

“Absolutely not.  They’re all idiots.”

“Hm.”

“What’s this all about?”

“Someone put buttercups in my food a few weeks ago.  I’m trying to figure out who.”

Flowey hums pensively.  “You sure it wasn’t the skeleton?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Well, then I can’t help you.  Someone might’ve figured it out, but definitely not anyone on this list, and I sure as hell didn’t tell anyone.”

“Great.  Well, thanks anyway.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "That you're playing chess against yourself, or that you appear to be losing," is a reference to calvin and hobbes
> 
> "Hospitals are so trusting." Alex is quoting DC comics, i think the character who says that is Harley Quinn, but I just saw screencaps on tumblr so I don't know which comic, or what issue, or even the context.


	10. An Invisible Enemy and an Ally with the Power of a God

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for some plot.

IT O

[Sans]

* * *

You’ve started tagging along to Frisk’s official ambassador stuff.  They say it makes them feel safer, even though there are people here who’s job it is to protect them.  You’re fine with it, though. It gives you an excuse to keep an eye on Papyrus, and Toriel.

So you’re making coffee in the meeting room while you wait for Frisk and Toriel to arrive, while Papyrus socializes with some officially-dressed humans nearby.  (You took a shortcut.  Papyrus walks fast.)  You pull at the tie he insisted you wear today, loosening it enough that it doesn’t chafe.  You think you feel time shift, or was it just your imagination?  It wasn’t very strong.  Your phone beeps.

You pull it out - it’s a text from Frisk.

*You need to find your brother and get out of the building now.

Shit.  You text back.

*why?

It doesn’t take them long to reply.

*Gaster.

*I’ll explain later.

*Just get out.

“papyrus,” you say, walking over to him, feigning calm, “we need to go.  now.”

“WHAT?  WHY?”

Before you can answer, the fire alarm goes off.

* * *

You watch from what you hope is a safe distance while the building is evacuated.  You search the crowd for any sign of Toriel or Frisk, or even Asgore, but so far all you can see is a mess of confused people in suits muttering about how “someone must have pulled it as a prank” and “maybe it’s a drill” and “when can we go back in?”

Papyrus taps you on the shoulder.  “HOW DID YOU KNOW IT WOULD GO OFF?”

“frisk told me.”  You pull out your phone and show him the text.

“SO,” he says after reading it, “THERE IS NO FIRE?”

“i guess not.” you say, shrugging.

* * *

“Sans!  Papyrus!”  You turn to see Toriel, running towards you from the crowd.  “Oh thank goodness you are safe!”

You run up to meet her.  “tori!” you say, before noticing she’s alone.  “where’s Frisk?”

“They said they wanted to make sure everyone got out.”

“do you know what’s going on?”

“No.”

You hear a noise from the building.  Or, did you?  It keeps going.  Silence.  Really, really _loud_ silence.  You exchange a glance with Papyrus before the building disappears.

You think you hear screams.  You shortcut to the front of the crowd and look at the square of dirt and pipes where there used to be a five-story building.  The silence dissipates and is replaced with the buzzing of the crowd.  You look for Frisk.

* * *

It’s been two days.

Toriel is in the kitchen.  You think she’s making pie.  The T.V. is on, humans with monotone voices talking about what happened.  Some claim it was a deliberate attack by a monster.  Anyone with a brain dismisses the idea - no monster has that kind of power.

You wish that was true.

You head to Frisk’s room and look around.  It’s clean, exactly how they left it, toys meticulously put into their respective homes and nothing scattered about.

There’s a lone piece of paper on the bedstand.  You pick it up and see that there’s a label: “Toriel.”

You probably shouldn’t open it.  You do anyway.

_Mom,_

_If you’re reading this then I’m dead.  Sorry about that.  Thanks to all the time stuff, in theory I can’t really die.  So if the time stuff stops working for some reason, It probably won’t take long for me to do something reckless and die again._

_Don’t worry about me.  In truth, I should have been dead a long time ago._

_The reason I’m writing this is that, if I never tell you in person, there are some things you need to know about Chara._

You only skim the rest of it.  The whole truth is right here - everything you know about Chara’s death and everything that happened afterward.  It also says everything they knew about Gaster.  At the end, it reads:

_Finally, I want to thank you.  I know I’ve said it before, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go on the surface.  I didn’t have a family before, or any friends in the strictest sense of the word.  You took me in and cared for me when I needed it most.  I don’t think I ever thanked you for that.  So, thank you._

_Love,_

_Frisk and Chara._

You stare at the signature for a minute.  Chara’s name isn’t in the same handwriting as the rest - you guess they were the one to write it.  You wonder briefly if you should go give this to Toriel, but decide against it.  Frisk is missing, not dead.  Besides, she’ll probably find it herself soon enough.  You put it back where you found it.

* * *

It’s been five days.  Tori finds the letter.

* * *

Someone knocks on the door and you open it to find a large, old male human who looks angry about something but speaks in a relatively civil tone when he says “I’m looking for my daughter.”

“you think she’s nearby?”

He pulls out a picture and shows you.  “Have you seen her?”

You take the picture and look at it for a second.  The kid shown (wearing a smile that doesn’t quite reach their eyes) is unmistakably Frisk.  You pretend to be analyzing the photograph and try to think of what to say.  You don’t know much about Frisk’s life before they fell, but it didn’t exactly sound _good_.  If this guy really is their father, you probably shouldn’t help him find them.

Not that it matters, anyway.  Frisk has been missing for almost a week.  You give back the photograph.  “sorry, i’ve never seen her before.  i’ll let you know, though.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“pardon?”

“I know she’s been living here.  She’s all over the news, under that ridiculous pseudonym, ‘Frisk’.  I know you’ve seen her.  Tell me where she is.”

“well, if you’ve been watching the news you should know i have no idea where frisk is.  also, i’m pretty sure you have them mistaken for someone else.  they look like a lot of people.”

“I know my own daughter when I see her.”

“heh, right.  well, if we are talking about the same kid, i’ve got a question for you.”  You let your white pupils fade.  “How is it that a twelve-year-old child ends up alone on a mountain no-one ever comes back from?”  You wait for him to answer but he doesn’t.  You put your pupils back on.  “yeah, that’s what i thought.”  You step out of the doorframe and get ready to close it.  “see you around.”

“Wait.”  He grabs the door before you can close it and starts to say something, but someone else walks up to him and interrupts.

“Joe what the fuck are you doing?”

He turns suddenly to look at the other person.  “Alex?  Why are _you_ here?”

“I walk through here to get to school.  Care to explain why you’re harassing a random stranger?”  They cross their arms and glare at him.

He points angrily at you.  “He knows where my daughter is.”

“well that’s a hell of an accusation.” you say, “i thought you were just asking if i’d seen her.”

“Jesus,” the kid pulls his hand from the door, “you need to stop doing this.  The kid’s been dead for almost a year now.”

“She isn’t dead.”

“Then yelling at some man in his home isn’t going to _find_ them.”

“I-”

“Stop.  Go home, smoke one of your girlfriend’s joints, and take a fucking nap before you kill someone.”  He scoffs angrily and glares at you before finally walking away.  The kid turns to you.  “Sorry about him.  I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

“i appreciate it,” you say, closing the door and immediately shortcutting to a hiding place outside to watch them.  If this person really did know Frisk, you want to be sure they’re not a threat.  They walk quickly toward the old man until he turns around.

“What the hell did you do that for?” he asks.

“Your kid’s _dead_ , Joe.  It’s about time you fucking got over it.”

“You’ve seen the news, Alex.  That kid they’re parading around as the ‘ambassador’ - I _know_ it’s her.”

Alex looks down for a moment before glaring up at him.  “Why do you care?”

He takes a step backward.  “The hell kind of question is that?”

The kid walks closer to him, making up for the space he retreated and then some.  “I’ve had enough of your act, Joe.  I’m not an _idiot_.  I know exactly what happened to that kid the day they disappeared.  _I know what you did._ And if you go within a hundred meters of that child _ever again,_ so help me _god_ , they will _never_ find your body.”

He goes pale and takes few timid step back before turning and running away.  Alex relaxes a bit, sighing, before turning around and looking directly at you.

“I’m guessing you heard most of that.”

You step out of your hiding place.  “i heard enough.”

They nod, slipping their hands into their pockets.  “You don’t have to worry about him.  I meant what I said and he knows it.  He won’t be back.”

“and if you’re wrong?”

“Then, just... don’t let him near Frisk, okay?”  Alex looks away from you.  “They’re... still missing?”

“yeah.”

They nod.  “Well, I guess it’s a moot point if they’re dead.”

You shake your head.  “this is _frisk_ we’re talking about.  wherever they are, i know they’re alive.”

“The kid isn’t easy to kill,” they say, nodding, “But I mean, how long has it been?  A week?  Two?”

“ten days.”

They sigh again.  “Well, good luck.”

“...thanks.”

* * *

Your phone beeps and you pull it out - it looks like a missed call... from Frisk.

...Three days ago.

You dial their number.  It rings five times before anyone picks up.

“Hello?”

“holy shit, frisk?  you’re alive?!”

“Uh, yeah.” they speak pretty quietly, sounding confused, “I... think so.”

“where are you?  are you hurt?”

“Um, I’m... somewhere in the underground?  Hang on... oh, I’m in the ruins, by Chara’s grave.”

“how did you get there?”

“Hell if I know.”

“well, stay put.  i’ll be there in-”

“Sans?”

“what?”

“This is going to sound like a weird question, but... what month is it?”

“...you’re right, that’s a pretty weird question.”

“Just humor me.”

“november.”

“Oh thank god.  Is everyone okay?”

“yeah, everyone got out except for you.”

“Good.”

“...ok, i’m on my way there now.”

* * *

You take a shortcut to Chara’s grave and find Frisk standing next to it, facing away from you.

“frisk,” you say, walking toward them, “what the hell happened?  where have you been?”  They shrug, not turning to face you.  You notice for the first time that they’re covered in wounds.  “you’re hurt-”

“It’s nothing.”

“frisk, that is the least convincing ‘nothing’ i have ever heard and as a friend of alphys that is fucking _saying_ something.”

“Really the least of my worries right now.”

You sigh.  “let’s get you home-”

“No.”  Frisk steps away from you.

“...what?”

“I’m not leaving yet.”

“why the hell not?”

“Because.... fuck, because.  Because Chara... fuck.  Sans, Chara’s gone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 11 will appear tomorrow. It's been edited already but there's no point in having a cliffhanger if i can't string you all along for at least a little bit ^^
> 
> Chapters 10, 11, and 12 between them were responsible for about 90% of the time I spent writing this. I do not have the words to adequately describe the extent to which they did not want to be written.
> 
> Oh and "go home, ... and take a fucking nap before you kill someone" is a quote from a homestuck fanfiction that I don't know how to find again. But again, I will credit if I do manage to find it.  
> EDIT: IT TOOK ABOUT HALF AN HOUR OF SEARCHING BUT I FOUND IT  
> it's from chapter 27 of Short Circuit by ShearedThoughts  
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/391218/chapters/641958


	11. You Won't Come Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you convince yourself you have no choice, you can do anything.  
> It's all downhill from there.
> 
> Also it took me an hour to get the wingdings to work. Shoutout to my dad for figuring out what I was doing wrong.

[Chara]

* * *

You follow your mom into the building, Frisk pulling a little uncomfortably at their fancy clothes.  You kind of like the way it fits, with long sleeves that weigh on your arms when you lift them, but Frisk hates the way it slows their movements.  They’re glad for the gust of air conditioning when you enter the building, thinking about how this state has no business being so warm in early November.  You can’t help but laugh a little.

They’re only a few dozen feet into the building, though, when they stop.

Your mom turns around.  “Frisk?  My child, what’s wrong?”

They don’t speak to her just yet, but ask you, _“Did you hear something?”_

_“No?  What was it?”_

They turn to Toriel.  “Something isn’t right.”  _“When did we save last?”_

_“Like a week ago.”_

_“Is there a save point nearby?”_

You’d shrug if you could.  _“Probably.”_

“I think... hang on.”  They head back toward the entrance and find a save point near the door.  You remember this one now - they created it when you came to this building for the first time.  They save quickly and immediately quit.

* * *

The save screen is dark and warm and you stand by the little spot of light while Frisk looks at the menu for a second.

“So what was that all about?” you ask, stretching your imaginary limbs.

“I have a bad feeling.” they reply, poking at something.

“That’s all?”

“I’ve learned to trust my instincts.”  They open up a familiar window and start looking through the code.

“Shit, what are you doing?”

“Calm down, I’m not ‘doing’ anything.”

“Remember what happened _last_ time you messed with the code?”

“Yes.  That’s why I’m not messing with it.  I’m just looking.”

You sigh.  “Alright.”

They keep poking at stuff for another few minutes until they turn to you suddenly.  “Chara, you might want to see this.”

You stand up and walk over.  “What is it?”

“That whole building is missing.”

You look over their shoulder.  “What do you mean, ‘missing’?”

“It’s just... _gone_.  I can’t see it from here.”

“But... it’s right there.”

“Not as far as the code is concerned.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t fucking know.”

“...Check the Fun value.”

Frisk gives you a look but checks anyway.  “...66.”

“I thought you changed it back.”

“I did.”

* * *

“Mom we need to evacuate the building now.”

“What?”

Frisk pulls out their phone and texts Sans.  “...Mom, does the name ‘W. D. Gaster’ mean anything to you?”

_“Frisk there’s no time for this you know she doesn’t know.”_

“Um, no?  Who is that?”

“The dead person I think is about to blow this building up.”

“What?”

* * *

_“Pull the fire alarm.”_

_“But there’s no fire.”_

_“Then START ONE.”_

Frisk finishes typing their message to Sans and runs until they find the nearest alarm.  _“You sure it’ll work?”_

_“I can’t think of anything else to do.”_

They grab the handle and pull down, bracing themself for the sudden noise.

* * *

Frisk runs back into the building, telling your mom that they have to be sure.  The truth is more complicated but you’re not going to judge them for lying.

_“Are you even sure he’s here?”_ you ask.

_“Of course I’m not sure.”_   They equip your knife.  _“If he is, I’m going to need your help.”_

_“Gotcha.”_

A noise sounds.  Or... doesn’t.  _“What the hell is that?”_ asks Frisk.

_“Silence?  Really... loud silence?”_

_“Thanks.  That’s real helpful.”_

_“What do you expect?  I’m not some kind of omnipresent demigod I don’t know any more about this shit than you do, Frisk.”_

_“Yeah that’s great shut up a minute.”_   Frisk starts going toward what they guess is the source of the sound (or lack there of).  _“Do you think that’s him?”_

_“He was never the kind of person to announce his presence when he walked into a room.  Also I never actually met him.  I have no idea.”_

_“But you eavesdropped on him a lot?”_

_“I tried.  He only spoke in sign language or that weird code of his.  I don’t know either of those things.”_

_“Great.  So we can’t even talk to him?”_

_“Well, he’ll understand you just fine.  I wouldn’t recommend it, though.”_

_“How come?”_

_“You still need to ask?  He’s fucking insane.”_

_“He didn’t sound that different from us the way you described it.”_

_“God that’s even worse.”_

The noise gets louder suddenly and then stops.  Frisk listens for a minute for any sign of movement but hears nothing.

“JESUS MOTHER OF CHRIST WHAT THE FUCK?”

“Frisk calm down.”

“NO SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT.”

“Frisk.”

“GOD I CAN STILL HEAR IT ECHOING.”

_“Frisk.”_   You grab their left hand with their right and massage it for a second to calm them down.  They blink a few times and you breathe for them while they get their bearings.

_“Right, right.  It’s okay.  I’m okay now.”_

_“Did you hear where it came from?”_

_“No.  You?”_

_“No.”_

_“I think it came from over here.”_ Frisk starts walking again, knife ready.

_“Did that one come from somewhere else?”_

_“I can’t tell.”_

_“Let’s just pick a direction and move.”_

A figure appears in front of you:  W. D. Gaster in all his half-melted glory.  Frisk falls into your fighting stance, waiting for him to make the first move.

 

He turns your soul blue and throws you against the wall.  Frisk jumps back, expecting a bone attack like Sans’s, but there isn’t one.  Instead, he ends his turn immediately.  Frisk decides to act.

“What do you want?” they ask, masking their fear to the best of their ability.

 

Frisk shakes their head.  “I can’t understand you.”

After doing nothing but stare pensively for a moment, Gaster coughs and speaks in a forced, choked monotone that crackles with static.

“T H I S   I S   N O T   R I G H T”

“I’m... sorry?”

“I T   W A S   N O T   S U P P O S E D   T O   H A P P E N   L I K E   T H I S”

“What was supposed to happen?”

Gaster starts his turn, tossing you against the wall again before just holding you midair.  Frisk struggles futilely against his magic.  “Y O U   W E R E   S U P P O S E D   T O   D I E”

This time, he really does attack you.  Frisk dodges easily, recognizing the attack as one Sans and Papyrus favored.  _“Short hops.”_   They remind themself.  _“Ready to try fighting?”_

_“Always.”_

Gaster’s turn ends and you lunge at him with the knife.  He doesn’t dodge, but the blade glides through him like water, his form completely undamaged.  _“Shit,”_ thinks Frisk.

“E N O U G H   O F   T H I S”  Gaster surrounds you with blue attacks before using his dark blue magic to throw you toward the wall again.  Frisk braces themself against the ground to avoid the bones but their soul is dragged straight through the attacks.

You feel the impact of the wall as you land and get ready to attack again before you realize that Frisk is still standing in the middle of the hallway.  You stare at them - fully separate as though in the save screen, and they stare back.  “What...?”

Gaster looks back and forth between the two of you, apparently just as surprised as you are, before smiling.  “P E R H A P S   I T   C A N   B E   S A L V A G E D   A F T E R   A L L”

“What do you mean?” you say, stepping backward, “What do you want?”

“I   W A N T   T O   C O N T I N U E   M Y   R E S E A R C H”  He stares at you, tugging you forward with his blue magic.  You realize that the only way he can do that is if you have a soul, and look down at your chest to see Frisk’s.  “C H A R A   D R E E M U R R”

“It was you.”  Frisk says, stepping as close to you as they can get without touching the bones.  “You’re the one who poisoned my food.  You knew.”

“Y E S”

“But why?  How?  Have you been watching us this whole time?  How much do you know?”

“. . . E N O U G H   O F   T H I S”

The building around you seems to melt away, and you see the black of the save screen.

* * *

[Frisk]

* * *

Your feet touch cold tile.  You would have sworn you were wearing shoes.  You shiver a bit, looking around.  You can’t see.

“Chara?” you call.  But nobody came.

You feel something next to you and reach out, recognizing the warmth of a save point.  You try to use it, but it doesn’t respond.  You try to quit.  Nothing happened.

You turn to your left.  This place is familiar.  You think you need to go left.

“Chara?” you call again, tapping the floor with your stick, “Chara, where are you?”  You hear bells and footsteps and instinctively hold your stick like a weapon.  “Who’s there?”

“heya.”

“...Sans?”

“you’ve been busy, huh?”

“What...?  Sans, what’s going on?  I thought you were outside.  What-”

“so, i’ve got a question for ya.  do you think even the worst person can change..?  that everyone can be a good person, if they just try?”

“What?!”  Can he even hear you?  “I don’t understand.  What’s going on?”

“heh heh heh heh...”

Something about this is familiar.

“well, here’s a better question.”

You think you’re starting to understand.

“do you wanna have a bad time?”

Shit.

“cause if you take another step forward...  you are REALLY not going to like what happens next.”

You’re in the final corridor.

Sans is going to kill you.

You can’t save, you can’t quit, and Sans is going to kill you.

You take a step backward.  Another step.  Sans says nothing.  You move your stick to the ground behind you.

“what the hell are you doing?”

“Leaving.”

“why?”

You take another step backward.  He doesn’t stop you.

You try to remember how much he knows at this point.  He’s figured out you can time travel, but does he know about Flowey?  You guess it doesn’t matter.

You start to answer his question, but he starts talking again before you can.

“...why can’t i turn you blue?”

You clutch your chest automatically.  Your soul is gone.  Chara has it.

“kid.  where the hell is your soul?”

You swallow.  “Chara.  I... I have to find Chara.”

“chara’s dead.”

“As far as you know.”

“i saw their body.  where do you expect to find them?”

You... don’t actually have any idea.  “The save screen.”

“the what?”

“But how do I get there without quitting...?”

“get where?”

“I have to go.”

“get back here!”

You start running.  A bone attack materializes behind you.  You know Sans’ first attack by heart, and dodge as well as you can without your eyes.  One of the blasters grazes your arm, but you keep going.

You run face first into something hard and fall backwards.  Before you have a chance to move you feel bones through your chest.  Blue attacks.  Sans’ footsteps come up behind you.

“are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“No.”

“i guess we’ll be here a while then.”

You hear shuffling and you guess he sat down next to you.  You try again to quit.  Nothing happened.

“how do you know chara?”

“We’ve been sharing a body.”

“since when?”

“Since I fell.”

“so... which one of you was it?”

“What do you mean?”

“who’s idea was it to kill people?”

“...Didn’t you _know_ Chara?  You’d take my word over theirs?”

“i doubt i’ll have to.”

“...It was their idea.  I helped.  Long story.”

“i’ve got time.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t.”

“right, the ‘save screen’ or whatever.  how do you know they’ll be there?”

“It’s where they were last I saw them.”

“how long ago was that?”

“Depends how you count.  Either like five minutes ago, or a few years in the future.”

“...the future?”

“Why do you sound so surprised?  I thought you already knew about the time shit.”

“i do, but...”

“Did you think ALL timelines ended after today?”  You take his brief silence for affirmation.  “No, I went back and fixed it.  This timeline, from my perspective, ended years ago.”

“...”

“...It’s okay, I don’t expect you to believe me.”  Either way, you guess you’re waiting here until he falls asleep.  That won’t work too well when he isn’t all tuckered out from fighting.  You sigh.  “I just hope they’re okay.”

“you mean chara?”

“Yeah.”

“what happened?”

“Are you saying you believe me?”

“no, but i might as well hear the whole story.”

“...You’re stalling.”

“what, no.”

“Why the hell are _you_ stalling?”

“i’m not stalling.”

You’re both silent for a minute.  Nothing you say is going to change his mind, you guess.  You do have to admit you’re gonna get bored fast.

“Does the name W. D. Gaster mean anything to you?”

“no.”

“...You asked me what happened.  Well, _he_ happened.”

“who is he?”

“The ass who drilled the metal plate into your hand.”

“...how did you know about that?”

“Chara told me.  They’re the only one who remembers Gaster for some reason.  And they never even met the guy.  They told me what they knew, though.  Something happened that got him erased from people’s memories, and also like, undead?  Anyway.  He’s the one who fucked with the timeline.  He’s in the save screen right now, I think, where Chara is.”

“what does he want?”

“Hell if I know.  He just said some vague shit about continuing his...”  It suddenly dawns on you what that means.  “research.  Fuck.”  A million thoughts go through your mind at once.  What is he going to do to them?  What has he done already?  You can’t just leave them there.  You have to find them.

You try to quit.  Nothing happened.

“Fuck,” you repeat, “I have to find them.”  You try to figure out how quickly you can get away from the blue attacks.  Would it kill you first?  Is it worth the risk?

The answer is yes, and also yes.  You brace yourself.

“are you crying?”

“What, no.  I don’t cry.”

“heh, they mean that much to you?”

“Of course they do.  They’re all I have.”

“what’s the other timeline like?  don’t you have anyone else?”

“Well, yeah.  Everyone’s alive.  I have Mom and Papyrus and you, but... well.  They’re the only one besides me that can remember a true reset.  Even when I’m alone... I’m never really alone, as long as I have them.”

“...but right now, you _are_ alone.”

“Yeah, and it’s fucking terrifying.”

“no wonder you’re crying.”

“I am _not_ crying.”  Your voice gives you away, though.  “Why do you care, anyway?  It’s not like you see me as a person anymore.  I’m just the piece of shit that killed your brother.”

“what can i say?  i’m bored.”

“You’ll be a lot _more_ bored if you kill me.  I can’t go back right now.  Not without Chara.  I think if I die now I’ll just... die.”

“better than what happens if you get through.”

“Fair enough.”

You get ready to jump again, but think better of it.

“Okay, I told you what you wanted to know.  Can I go now?”

“...go where?”

“The Ruins.  It’s where they’re buried, so... if I can find them at all, it’s my best bet.”

“how do i know you won’t just come back and kill me once you’ve found them?”

“You don’t.  You also don’t know that I will find them.  Or that I could beat you at all if I did.   Besides, I’m technically at level one right now.  Even when I had a max HP of like... ninety-something or whatever, I couldn’t beat you in one try.  Also, I don’t have any money or food and I can’t use my save points to heal, so I’m stuck with this gash you gave me.”  You gesture to the spot on your arm the blaster grazed you, careful not to move the parts of your body with bones in them.

You wait for him to speak.  It takes him a while, but he does.  “what will you do if you do find them?”

“I’ll get back to my own timeline.  If I can’t do that, I’ll reset and fix it all over again.  If I can’t do that... I don’t know.”

“...alright.”  You hear Sans stand up and walk at least twenty feet away from you.  “if we’re really friends... you won’t come back.”

The blue attacks in your chest dissipate, and you’re alone.

* * *

“Hello, Frisk.”

“River Person?  You’re still here?”

“No, I am here again, just as you are.”

“Oh.”

“Would you care to join me?”

“Yes, please.”

“Where will we go today?”

“Snowdin.”

“Then we’re off...”

“Can I ask you something?”

“You may.”

“Do you think even the worst person can change?  That everyone can be good, if they just try?”

“...Perhaps.  Or perhaps not.  It doesn’t really matter.”

“Heh, is that your answer for everything?”

“Tra la la...”

“What do you know about the man who speaks in hands?”

“Only as much as there is to know.”

“Is that enough?”

“Perhaps.”

“Is he the man from another world?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Well, neither does anything else.  That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth asking.”

“...Tra la la...”

“Why did you tell me to be careful of him?”

“...The worst person will never change if they do not try.”

“That’s why it doesn’t matter?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“Who is the worst person?”

“...”

“Tra la la.”

“I guess, the worst person is the kind of person who would do what I did.”

“...”

“Am I the worst person?”

“Perhaps.  Or perhaps not.  It doesn’t really matter.”

“...”

“Here we are.”

“Oh.”

“Come again.  Or don’t.”

“Thank you.”

* * *

The door is locked.  You forgot it was locked.  Maybe you can break it down?  Or use the blue magic sans taught you?  It’s colder than you remember.

You try again to quit.  Nothing happened.

You attack the door.  Nothing happened.

You try to use blue magic.  Nothing happened.

You pull out your phone and dial Sans.  Maybe he knows a shortcut or something.

No response.

You turn around and sit at the base of the door.  “Chara?  Can you hear me?”

No response.

Dust sifts out through the crack under the door.  You curl into a ball.  Now seems like a really good time for a nap.

* * *

_“Frisk?”_

_“Chara!  Where are you?”_

_“I’m here.”_

_You can’t see except for something red in the distance.  You go toward it.  “Chara, what happened?  Are you alright?”_

_“I’m fine.”  The red takes the form of them, the way the look in the save screen.  You reach out to them.  “Frisk, I need you to do something for me.”_

_“What is it?”_

_“I need you to remember this when you wake up.”_

_“Remember... remember what?  Have I been dreaming the whole time?”_

_“No, but you’re dreaming now.  Frisk, I need you to wait for me.  Don’t come back to the save screen.  I’ll come to you.”_

_“But-”_

_“Don’t.  I’ll be fine.”_

_“You’re lying.”_

_They hug you.  Or, at least, give you some approximation of a hug._

“Frisk, I am the demon that comes when you call it’s name.  Wherever you are, _whenever_ you are, I will _always_ come for you.”

* * *

You wake up in a bed of yellow flowers.

Your phone rings.


	12. As Long As it Takes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TG: i will call ur name like a million times  
> TG: and shout it in 2 the void every chance i get  
> TG: til u come back :3  
> -Roxy Lalonde, homestuck

[Sans]

* * *

“what do you mean you can’t see?”

“I mean I’m blind, Sans.  I have been for years, actually.  Chara saw for me.”

You watch from the side of the room as Alphys patches up their wounds.  They’re mostly just scrapes and bruises, but you’re worried about the one on their arm.  “so you’re covered in bruises because you’ve been tripping on stuff.”

“Essentially, yes.”

“what about the one on your arm?”

They don’t say anything to that.  Alphys makes a small flame and holds it out to them.  They hold their hands over it.  “Were you in Snowdin?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“is that where you were this whole time?”

“No.”

“H-how did you get here?”

“I don’t know.”

“what do you remember?”

They shake their head.  “Not much.  I went into the building and Gaster was there.  We fought, and I lost, and...  I think the rest was a weird dream.  I just woke up here.”

* * *

You find Toriel in her old house, on her way to find Frisk.  You decide to walk back with her.

“How are they doing?”

“pretty well, besides the injuries and the hypothermia.  they won’t talk about what happened, though.  they just keep saying that, uh, chara’s gone.”  You have to remind yourself that she knows, after finding the letter Frisk left.

“What do you mean, gone?”

You shrug.  “i dunno, but they’re pretty freaked out over it.  won’t leave that spot by their grave.”

* * *

“how long do you plan on sitting there?” you ask, next time you’re alone with Frisk.

“Until they come back.”

“and if they never come back?”  You hate to bring it up, but the kid has to be prepared for that possibility.

They shrug halfheartedly.  “Then...” they sigh, “then someone’s going to have to take care of these flowers.”

* * *

You wait within earshot while Tori goes to bring them food, slowly giving up on trying to think of anything to say.

“I know you’re there, Flowey.” they call, “Come on out.”

The flower in question appears in front of them.  “What do you want?”

“Nothing.  You’re the one creeping.”

“I am not creeping.”

“Why are you here, then?”

He pauses for a long moment.  “...Is Chara really gone?”

“Yeah.”

“Then... where are they?”

Frisk shakes their head.  “I don’t know.”

“But... how?  I thought you two were stuck with each other.”

“So did I.”  Frisk laughs a bit, then seems to have an idea.  “Hey, Sans?”

“yeah?”

“Would you do me a favor?”

“depends on the favor.”

“Try to turn my soul blue.”

You hesitate a second, but reach out with your magic anyway.  Nothing happens.

“it’s not working.”

“Yup.”  Frisk flops onto their back on the ground.  “That’s because Chara has it.”

“Chara _what_?” interjects Flowey.

“In the last timeline, we made a deal and I gave them my soul.  Long story.  So now, I guess it’s still with them.  Which means, wherever they are,”  Frisk rests their hand on their chest.  “they’re still alive.”

* * *

You bring a book into the ruins with you so you can keep an eye on Frisk.  Most of their friends visit at least once, but Flowey is the only one they spend much time talking to.  The word on the surface is that Frisk has been found, but they’re very sick.  You even get a human doctor to look them over and then lie to the public for you.

Honestly, you don’t really see the point in always having someone nearby.  They have a cell phone and it’s not like the ruins are exactly dangerous, but Tori doesn’t want them to be left alone.  You don’t really mind, though.  It gives you an excuse to do nothing but read and sleep for days at a time without getting yelled at.

It is pretty boring though.

* * *

“Hey, Sans?”

“yeah?”

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

You put down your book.  “what’s up?”

They twist a flower between their fingers nervously.  “It’s about the other timelines.  The... the one before this one.”

“the bad one?”

“Yeah.”

“what about it?”

“It... it wasn’t all Chara.  I lied, and they went along with it, but...” they sigh.  “By the time we got to the golden hallway, they were starting to change their mind.  In the end...”  They stop and take a deep breath before continuing.  “Chara wore you down, but I’m the one that killed you.”

It takes you a moment for the reality of what they just said to set in.  “...what? but... why?”

“I...”  They stop themself and shake their head.  “...No.  It’s... It’s too late for excuses.  It’s too late for apologies.  It’s too late to make this _right_ in any meaningful sense of the word.  I just... I’m just tired, okay?  I’m tired of pretending it never happened.  I’m tired of blaming it all on Chara.  I’m tired of lying to everyone I care about and acting like I don’t still see you die in my dreams and I don’t remember plain as _day_ the fear in your brother’s voice when he tried to forgive me and the way mom _laughed_ when I killed her and the expression on your face when you finally gave up and-”

“stop.”  You can’t see their face, but they’re shaking.  You stand up, suddenly restless, realizing that you’re shaking, too.  “just.  stop.”

You try to decide how to react.  You want to yell at them.  You want to hate them.  You want to forgive them.  You remember the dream where Papyrus dies.  The one you have so often it feels more like a memory.  You want to hate them for it.  You do hate them for it.  Your magic bubbles up in your soul and you hold it at bay for now.  You turn to leave.

“I won’t ask you to forgive me.” says Frisk, “But... would you let me be the one to tell the others?”

“i’m not making any promises.” you tell them before you shortcut out of the ruins.

* * *

“SANS!”  You can’t decide whether to be relieved or frustrated at your brother’s voice when he finds you in your old house in Snowdin.  He runs to your side.  “HAVE YOU BEEN HERE THIS WHOLE TIME?  EVERYONE IS LOOKING FOR YOU!”

“sorry, bro.”

He sighs the way he does when he knows nothing is going to get through to you.  “WELL, I SUPPOSE THERE’S TIME FOR THAT LATER.  RIGHT NOW, YOU’RE NEEDED BACK IN THE RUINS.”

“can i maybe... not?  i don’t really wanna see frisk right now.”

“ACTUALLY, FRISK HAS SOMETHING IMPORTANT THEY NEED TO TELL EVERYONE.  SO NO.”

“i think i already know what it is.”

He starts to say something before stopping to look at you for a sec.  “SANS, YOUR EYE IS GLOWING.”

“is it.”

Suddenly cautious, he sits down next to you.  “BROTHER, WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN YOU AND FRISK?”

“...they said they wanted to be the one to tell you guys.  why don’t you go hear it from them.”

“I THINK YOU SHOULD COME TOO.  EVEN IF YOU’RE RIGHT.”

“why’s that.”

He gives you an exasperated look and sighs.  “I THINK YOU WILL FEEL BETTER IF YOU KNOW EXACTLY HOW THEY ARE GOING TO TELL US.”

“...maybe you’re right.”

* * *

Unsurprisingly, Frisk tells the others almost exactly the way they told you.  Maybe it’s because you’re there.  Unsurprisingly, everyone is quick to forgive them.

You decide to leave.

* * *

“Where is Frisk?”

“ah, you again... alex, was it?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“if you know we found them then you should know they’re sick and shouldn’t have too many visitors right now.”

“I also know how to tell when people lie.  Are they here?”

“no.”

“Then _where are they?_ ”

“go home, alex.”

* * *

“Sans, enough of this.”

“i am not going to go see them, tori.  i don’t care how much you think it’s going to make everything better.”

“You are being selfish.”

“talking to them isn’t going to fix this, tori.”

“Then what on earth _would_ fix it?  Because cowardly running away from it certainly won’t.”

“they LIED to us!  doesn’t that matter to you at ALL?”

“Frisk is a child, Sans.  You cannot hold them to the same standards as you would an adult.  They have recognized that they were wrong and they are TRYING to atone for it!”

“so what?  it doesn’t erase what they did.”

“They _went back in time_ in order to fix it!  What more do you expect them to _do_?”

“i don’t CARE what they do now.  it doesn’t matter.  i just don’t want to cal- _see_ ‘em, okay?”

“Do NOT try to distract me with jokes.  You are being incredibly childish.”

“do you expect me to just forgive them like you did?  because i don’t.  i can’t, tori.  i don’t _do_ forgiveness.  that’s my brother’s job.”

“Frisk doesn’t want you to forgive them.  They just want to be able to talk to you.  Sans, if that is really too much to ask...”

“...if i go talk to them, can we drop it?”

“Yes.”

* * *

Tori insists on walking to the ruins with you, even though it would be faster to take a shortcut.  You find Frisk exactly the way you left them.  Tori waits for you at the edge of the room, watching.  You walk up to frisk slowly.

“...hey, kid.”

They turn around suddenly, confusion written on their face.  “Sans?  I didn’t think you were coming back.”

“well, tori says i owe you an apology.”

They look down before turning away from you again.  “You don’t.”

“okay, no apology, then.  i guess... i just find it hard to believe.  your story doesn’t sound anything like the frisk i’ve gotten to know.  the lies i understand, but...”  You sit down, crosslegged.  “i want to know why you did it.”

“...You’ve asked me that before.”

“the real reason.”

Frisk tilts their head back, like they’re looking at the scrap of sunlight above them.  “...I wanted it to be over.  I wanted to finish a timeline so we could go back cleanly.  So we could perform a True Reset.  ...At first, I thought it was the only way.  By the time i figured out it wasn’t... it was a matter of integrity, I guess.  I’d made a promise, and I didn’t want to break it.  No matter what.”

“...i guess i can understand that.”

* * *

Without really meaning to, you fall asleep at the edge of the room Frisk is in.  You don’t even realize it until you wake up to the sound of footsteps, heading toward Frisk.  You sit up and peek around the corner.  Frisk turns toward the intruder, who after a moment you recognize as Alex.

“Who’s there?”

“I thought your eyesight magically returned or something.”

Frisk shrinks a bit, adopting a more defensive pose.  “Had you fooled,” they say with a thin layer of false levity.

“What the hell happened?”

Frisk bows their head, but makes no move to answer.

“First you’re missing, then your eyesight is magically better, and then you’re missing _again_ , and now everyone says you’re sick but they don’t... really mean it, do they?  So why are they lying?”

“I asked them to.”  Frisk’s voice sounds small, and they don’t raise their head to speak.

“Why?”

“...”

Alex sighs.  “What is this place, anyway?”

Frisk turns away from Alex to face the flowers, holding out one hand.  “A friend of mine was buried here.”

Alex takes a few steps closer and sits down next to Frisk.  “Please tell me what happened.”

Frisk shakes their head.  “You won’t believe me.”

“Frisk, I recently learned that monsters and magic are real, and that you were alive, within a few months of each other.  I saw on the news that an entire building just straight up vanished.  I’ll believe anything at this point.”

“You _say_ that, but-”

“Try me.  Please.”

“Alex, I...”  Frisk sighs, “I don’t even understand it, not really.  I don’t know where to start...”

“Start with why you’re here.”

“I’m waiting.”

“For what?”

They point at the grave.  “For Chara.”

“Isn’t Chara dead?”

Frisk shrugs.  “They were dead when I met them.”

“So how...?”

“I don’t know.  All I know is that, wherever they are, they’re alive.  So I’m waiting for them to come and find me.”

Alex leans back on the palms of their hands.  “Do you honestly think they’ll come for you?”

“They said they would.”  Frisk hugs their legs to their chest.  “They promised.”

“you hadn’t mentioned that part,” you say, teleporting behind them and scaring the ever loving shit out of Alex, who screams and manages to turn completely around to face you, and end up several feet away, within the second.  You laugh.  “sorry, kid.  didn’t mean to spook ya.”

“You’re still here?” says Frisk, entirely unperturbed.

“yeah.”  You look back at Alex, who’s regaining their composure.  “so you really do know this person?”

“Yeah.”

“then why’ve you never mentioned them?”

Frisk doesn’t respond, but Alex speaks for them.  “I can’t say I blame them.  Easier to forget that way, right?”

Frisk remains silent, staring pointedly at nothing.

“Well,” says Alex, “I think that’s my cue to leave.  Take care of yourself, okay?”

Frisk nods minutely.

“Oh, but I should warn you.  Joe-”  Frisk flinches at the name and Alex hesitates a moment before continuing.  “He, uh, saw you on the news.  So he knows who you are now.  I’ll do what I can, but, well.  You know.”

They don’t wait to see Frisk’s reaction before walking past you and out of the room.  You have a seat next to Frisk.

“you should try to get some sleep,” is all you can think to say.

Frisk nods, looking relieved, and lies down.

* * *

“Come to the surface with me.”

You look up from the book you were reading, suddenly interested in Frisk’s conversation with the flower.  He snarls at them.  “What?”

“I... Mom and the others are right.  If Chara really does come back, they’ll find me whether or not I’m here.  I should go back to the surface and start doing my job again.  I just... I can’t do it alone.  Please come with me.”

“Frisk, that’s ridiculous.  None of them even _know_ about me.”

“i know about you,” you interject.

“Shut up, trashbag,” replies Flowey.

“Flowey, please,” says Frisk.

“No.”

“Aren’t you lonely down here?  It’s been so long, you can’t just... You don’t even have to do anything, just please don’t make me go alone.”

Both of them are silent for a long time after that.  You’re starting to think Flowey’s just going to leave without saying anything, when he speaks.  “If I go with you...”

* * *

One really could believe Frisk had been sick just from looking at them - their skin is paler than it should be and they lean heavily on a walking stick Tori brought them.  Flowey sticks out of their backpack, muttering directions to them with his head on their shoulder, but they still move uncharacteristically slowly and almost trip a few times.  You hadn’t noticed how little they’ve been eating, but now its plain to see the way their clothes drape loosely across their form.

Toriel insists they take it slow as the three (four?) of you hike down the mountain together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i found the things i said i wanted to credit in two previous chapters!! only took me like 2 hours of searching haha  
> anyway Amanda's character was inspired by this comic: http://l-nobby-l.tumblr.com/post/131606197025  
> and the quote in chapter 10 is from chapter 27 of Short Circuit by ShearedThoughts, at http://archiveofourown.org/works/391218/chapters/641958  
> and i've now updated both authors notes with the appropriate links


	13. Determination is One Hell of a Drug

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Aftertale reference in the title because I can)

[Chara]

* * *

“P A T H E T I C .”  Gaster stands in front of the small window into reality, arms folded in front of him.  Bits of his form appear to float off of him and reattach at will.  “T H E Y   H O N E S T L Y   B E L E I V E   Y O U   A R E   C O M I N G   B A C K .”

You sit next to him, watching the window intently and trying not to acknowledge him.  Frisk’s soul glows a soft blue in your chest, and if you focus you can feel their emotions drifting off of it.  You wonder if they can feel yours.  You kind of hope not - they don’t need your anxiety.

Gaster turns his head to look at you, scrutinizing you closely as the window blinks out of existence.  His face, molten cracks splitting through what used to be his skull, opens into a grin.  “S H A L L   W E   B E G I N ?”

* * *

_A memory:_

_The piano is so out of place in waterfall.  You and Frisk head toward it, their left hand reaching out to tap the keys.  They poke out a tune you don’t recognize, smiling softly, before heading over to the sign on the other side of the room._

_You read it to them, and they think about it for a long time before continuing on._

* * *

You’re hunched over in the void, dry heaving despite not having a body, shaking uncontrollably from the pain.  “What...?” you cough.

Gaster speaks to himself in that weird code of his, not addressing you.  Frisk’s soul quivers - or was that your imagination?  It hurts...

* * *

_A memory:_

_Asriel plays beautifully.  You curl up next to the piano, eyes shut, listening to the lullaby he’s playing.  He smiles down at you, pride written over his features._

_He nudges you awake and asks you to sing something.  You’re no singer, but he pushes until you agree.  You decide on something simple: an old song you heard in preschool you’ve almost forgotten.  You clear your throat._

_“Down by the bay... where the watermelons grow... back to my home... I dare not go... for if I do... my mother will say...”_

_“...Chara?  What’s the rest of the song?”_

_“I, uh...” you wipe your face, hoping he didn’t realize how close you were to crying.  “I don’t remember.”_

* * *

“What are you saying?” you ask, voice hoarse but working.  Gaster looks up from his clipboard - Where did he get that? - and glares down at you.

“P R E L I M I N A R Y   T E S T S   S U C C E S F U L .     M O V I N G   T O   S E C O N D   P H A S E .”

* * *

_A memory:_

_Frisk’s rendition of Asriel’s song is a little pathetic if you’re being honest, but the door recognizes it just fine.  They could go through it now, but they stay by the piano for a while longer trying to play the song the way they heard it.  You admire their perseverance, listening quietly while they play._

* * *

Frisk’s soul flashes bright red for an instant before returning to blue.  Gaster nods approvingly and writes something down.

* * *

_A memory:_

_You scramble your way up the mountain, wielding your stick like a weapon and hoping you can make it without your eyes.  The cold bites at your fingertips and you shiver but press on.  Something hard collides with your foot and you fall to the ground.  Groaning, you roll over and stand up again._

_You keep going.  You try to use your stick to guide you, bumping it into obstacles as you try to avoid them.  You can feel sunlight on your skin, but it’s fading quickly.  Your foot tangles on a vine and you fall._

_And keep falling.  The feeling of sunlight disappears and you no longer know which way is up or down.  You feel something - a presence, maybe - and in your desperation you call out to it.  The name falls out of your mouth without you needing to know what it is._

_“Chara!”_

* * *

You start awake, breathing heavily.  Your head hurts but you can’t remember your dream.  You look around, expecting to see Gaster, but find that you’re alone.  It’s cold here.  You aren’t sure how exactly you can feel cold.  The save screen never felt like this... you guess the void is wholly separate from it.  Or maybe it’s just different because Frisk isn’t here.

You push yourself to your feet, grimacing from the pain in your head.  Your vision blots out completely for a second but you almost don’t notice.  You try to remember how Frisk was able to access the code.  You reach out into the void hoping to touch something.  Nothing.  You shake your head.  This is pointless.

You keep trying anyway.

* * *

_A memory:_

_You hide behind a dumpster, staring up at the full moon.  You shiver from the cold, but make no move to stand up.  You hear heavy footsteps that you recognize immediately, and hold your breath to avoid being heard._

_He finds you anyway, and that’s when the shouting starts.  There’s nothing you can do or say to stop him.  You close your eyes and wait for it to end._

_He picks you up by the front of your shirt and slams you against the wall.  You grab his arms out of instinct.  Your ears hurt but you don’t know what he’s saying.  He pulls back one of his arms and forms a fist._

_By the time he stops, you’re both panting and your shirt is sticky with blood.  Something primal tells you to run, to fight back, but you can’t.  You can’t even stand up.  He kicks you one last time and walks away, muttering something you don’t hear._

_You manage to sit up, bracing yourself against the wall for support.  Your vision is blurry, but you can see that you’re alone.  You try to focus on breathing.  You hear footsteps and shrink against the corner of the dumpster.  The cold metal stings your skin and reminds you of your pain._

_Suddenly you see a face in front of you.  They’re talking frantically, trying to get you to respond.  You blink slowly at them.  You feel a hand on your shoulder and jerk away, raising a hand to cover your face.  Your shaking resumes.  You hear their voice but you can’t make out the words._

_Your vision blurs._

_You wake up in a hospital bed.  You hear several voices now, muddled together.  You squint against the light, trying to pick out the words._

_“Will they be okay?”  The voice from before._

_“Oh, she’ll live.  Don’t worry your pretty little head too much.”  A new voice.  You feel hands wrapping something around one of your wounds.  “Oh, are you awake, little one?”_

_After a moment you realize the voice is addressing you.  You open your eyes the rest of the way to get a look at it’s source: a woman in a doctor’s coat with long brown hair in a ponytail.  She smiles at you.  You nod in response to her question, sitting up slowly._

_“You had us worried there,” she continues, “but I think you’re going to be just fine.”_

_“How are you feeling?”  The first voice again.  You turn to look at the other person, who’s wearing a concerned expression and staring intently at you.  “Oh, uh,”  They hold out a hand in an invitation to shake.  “I’m Alex.”_

_You nod, sitting up the rest of the way and accepting the hand.  Alex shakes it gently._

_“This young man saved your life,” says the woman._

_“Oh, I’m not a...”  Alex trails off before they can say ‘man’, “Nevermind.”_

_“Now,” she continues, not seeming to have heard them, “I’ll let you rest, but first I need you to tell me your name so we can find your family.”_

_You tense up at the statement, hugging yourself a little before shaking your head no._

_The woman leans backward, confused, before trying again.  “My name is Petunia,” she says, “What’s yours?”_

_Does she think you didn’t understand her?  You shake your head again and motion with your hand as though holding a pen._

_“Oh,” she says, “you want to write it down for us?”_

_Alex holds out a paper and pencil before you respond, and you accept it, scribbling out a sentence before handing it to them._

_“What does it say?”  Asks Petunia._

_Alex looks at you, wide eyed, before reading it aloud.  “I don’t have one.”_

* * *

“T E L L   M E   W H A T   Y O U   S A W .”

“I didn’t see anything.”

“I   K N O W   W H E N   Y O U   L I E ,   C H A R A .”

You laugh, but it comes out forced.  “Give me one good reason that I should tell you anything.”

“H A V E   Y O U   F O R G O T T E N   T H E   T E R M S   O F   O U R   A R R A N G E M E N T ?”  A window opens and you see Frisk through it.  Gaster opens another window next to it and starts scrolling through the code.

“W... wait, you-”

“T E L L   M E ,”  he says, turning to you but holding one hand over the window, “O R   I   W I L L   R E M O V E   F R I S K   F R O M   T H I S   T I M E L I N E   A G A I N.”

At your hesitation, his hand moves toward the window.  “W-wait!” you hear yourself saying, “Okay, I’ll tell you, just don’t...”

* * *

_A memory:_

_You walk down the stairs alone, leaving Flowey in your room.  You hear shouting - voices you recognize.  You step quietly into the living room and feel cold wind on your face.  The door is open._

_“frisk, what are you doing up?” Sans asks.  You turn toward his voice._

_“I heard shouting-”_

_“Emma!  There you are!”  Footsteps come near you and you step backwards.  You know that voice.  “Tell these idiot monsters who I am.”_

_You swallow nervously.  “My name is Frisk.  I don’t know you.”_

_“What-”_

_“you heard ‘em.  now get the hell off our property.”_

* * *

“What exactly are you expecting to accomplish?”

“W E   A R E   G O I N G   T O   F I X   T H I S .”

* * *

_A memory:_

_You call for help.  Gaster holds you down with his magic and reminds you that no one can hear you.  You struggle against the leather straps and scream for your brother, for anyone.  But nobody came._

_A memory:_

_You take the knife in your left hand and attack with everything you have.  You just want it to be over.  Dust cakes your hands and your face and you keep going because it’s the only way.  You block out everything you hear, everything you see.  You focus your determination.  You need it to be over.  You need it to END._

_A memory:_

_Your brother collapses against you in a lifeless lump.  You try to shake him awake.  You call out to him.  Nothing happened._

_A memory:_

_Your fingertips are red from the cold and you can no longer feel your bare feet.  You knock on the door.  Nothing happened._

_A memory:_

_You called out for help._

_A memory:_

_But nobody came._

_A memory:_

_A memory:_

_A memory:_

* * *

You need to remember something.

* * *

_A memory:_

* * *

* * *

A voice.  You know that voice.  It reaches out to you.  It calls your name.

You are Chara.  You are chara.

The demon who comes  when  you  c all  it s  nam e.

* * *

“D O   I T   N O W”

Do what?

“R E S E T”

* * *

The save screen opens up before you.  You reach out to it.

> Chara

> Act

* * *

_> Continue_


	14. You Called out for Help...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look! A new chapter just one day after the previous one! Are you excited? Because I'm excited.  
> The final chapter will go up tomorrow! :)

[Sans]

* * *

“frisk?”  You knock on their bedroom door a few times, receiving no response.  “you in there, kid?”

“Just a minute!” they call, and you think you hear shuffling of some sort through the door.

You lean against the wall next to it and stare down at the plate of food in your hands.  “tori made quiche again.”

Frisk says something you can’t make out, but they sound happy.  The door opens a second later and frisk comes out, a disgruntled-looking Flowey sticking his head out of their backpack.

...Aw, who are you kidding - Flowey is always disgruntled.  You hand Frisk the plate and they start eating while you head down the stairs.  “so,” you say, mostly just to break the silence, “you... planning on visiting chara’s grave again today?”

Frisk nods and swallows before saying, “After the meeting.”  You walk in silence for a bit before they stop just short of the kitchen, resting their fork on their plate.  “Hey, um, Sans?”

“yeah?” you say, taking the plate from them to put it in the sink.

“Is everything okay with the, um... that man who...?”

“oh.”  You glance at Toriel, who doesn’t appear to have heard them, before resting a hand on their shoulder.  “yeah, don’t worry.  he won’t bother us again.”

Frisk nods shakily.  “Okay.”

* * *

You shut the door behind you while Frisk shrugs a jacket on and starts walking toward the bus stop.  Toriel follows close behind, eyeing the flower suspiciously when she thinks nobody’s looking.  You fall into step next to her, watching Flowey give grumpy directions as Frisk walks steadily forwards.

They’re pretending nothing’s wrong, which is somehow worse than what they were doing in the underground.  You look back and forth between them and Toriel, who’s doing the same thing, and wonder if they each think they need to be strong for the other.  Or maybe Frisk is just being strong for themself.

You were still angry when they came out of the underground, and you still wish you’d had a chance to ask Chara about everything yourself, but now...  You can’t stay angry at Frisk, not when they’re so different.  So... fragile.

You chuckle a bit.  Chara must have meant a lot to them.  They did seem to have that effect on people.

“Hey, Frisk?”  Flowey’s voice shakes you from your thoughts and you notice Frisk has stopped walking.  Toriel rushes up to them.

“My child, what’s wrong?”

You get close enough to see that they’re holding one hand over their chest, looking suddenly pale, muttering a hushed reply.  “It hurts.”

“What?”  Toriel kneels to their level, getting ready to try to heal them.  “Where?”

Frisk shakes their head minutely.  “My soul... it...”  They interrupt themself with a pained yelp, falling to their knees.  They start shaking, still clutching a hand to their chest.

Toriel puts a hand on their shoulder.  “Frisk, please talk to me.  You can feel your soul?”

“It hurts.”

“I-”

Suddenly, Frisk pushes her away and stands up, still hunched over.  “Chara.”

“Frisk-”

“I have to find Chara!”

With that, they sprint in the other direction, towards Mt. Ebbot.  You hear Flowey frantically shouting at them before Toriel runs after.  You shortcut ahead of them and grab their arm.  “sorry, kid-”

“I have to find them!”  They repeat, pulling harshly away from you.

“okay, jeez, calm down.”

“I need to get to Mt. Ebbot.”

“you can’t _run_ there.”

“I have to-”

“just give me a sec and we can take a shortcut, okay?”  Toriel finally catches up and you grab her hand before you can lose your grip on Frisk.

You jump.

Frisk pulls away from you as soon as their feet touch the floor of the ruins, running off in the direction of Chara’s grave without so much as a backwards glance.  They don’t even wait for Flowey’s instruction, seeming to know exactly where they are anyway.

Have you gotten that predictable?

“Chara?” they call.  You follow them into the room as they slow to a walk before reaching the flowers.  “Chara, can you hear me?  I’m here.  Chara!”

You wait.   Time seems to hang still, until Flowey opens his mouth to say something and Frisk collapses into the flowerbed.

* * *

“Frisk!”

“kid, come on.  wake up.”

Frisk stirs just a bit in their mother’s lap, gripping her sleeve with their right hand.  You sit in front of them both and watch them open their eyes.

“Frisk?”  Flowey pops up from the ground next to you.  “What happened?  Are you...?”  His eyes widen when they lock with Frisk’s and you look back at them, not seeing whatever Flowey just noticed.

Frisk speaks with a hoarse voice, almost a whisper.  “Asriel?”

“Chara,” breathes Flowey.

“Chara!”  Frisk holds their chest, smiling.  “You’re back.”  They blink and hold up one hand, looking at it.  “Frisk, I...”  They stand up suddenly, barely stopping themself from falling as they stumble away from Toriel.  “We have to...”

You share a look with Toriel and follow after them, catching up after they collapse again at the bottom of a staircase.  You kneel next to them and place a hand on their shoulder.

“Kid, what’s going-“

The world stutters.

You look up and see nothing but black.  You glance frantically in every direction until you see Frisk and... is that Chara?  They share a glance with each other before Frisk looks directly at you.  “Chara,” they say, “How did you bring him here?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” says Chara before they run to a certain part of the infinite blackness and wave frantically, managing to open... something.  Frisk sees what they’re doing and reacts immediately, pulling back on their arm.

“What the hell are you doing?!  You’re the one who said we shouldn’t mess with it!”

“That was before.  It’s the only way.”

“Slow down.  What are you trying to do?”

“There’s no time!  I have to erase it before-”

“C H A R A”

Chara freezes and you turn toward the direction of the voice.

“Y O U   I D I O T.”

Chara stands up and puts an arm defensively in front of Frisk.  Out of pure instinct, you step between them and the source of the voice.

Gaster pauses as though noticing you for the first time.  “Sans?” he says, voice so much more staticky than you...

No, you don’t remember it.  “uh, yeah?” you say, masking the fear in your voice, the edge of anxiety the form in front of you seems to cause, “have we met before?”

Gaster only stares at you.  Something in his expression looks... vulnerable?  It doesn’t suit him.  You don’t remember him ever looking like that...

...What are you thinking?  You don’t remember him at all.

...Right?

“you’re... wingdings, right?”  He has a name.  You always knew he had a name, but he never told you what it was.  You can hear his font now - an uppercaser, like Papyrus.

No, he isn’t anything like Papyrus.

“I am Doctor Wing Din Gaster.”

“you have a surname?  that’s rare.”  Or is it?  You and Papyrus are the only skeletons you know...

Gaster nods numbly.  “I took it after the war...”  He seems to remember something.  His expression shifts, and his body loses some of its form.  “Step away from the human.” he says.

You flash a grin and take a step towards him.  “better?”

“Get out of my way, Sa-”  He stops himself and stares down at you.  “Subject One.”

* * *

_A memory:_

_“When 1-S and 2-P - oh, that’s what he called us.”_

_Alphys looks up from writing.  “Oh, ok.”_

_You nod, and continue reading out loud._

* * *

You steady yourself and summon an attack behind you.  “here’s a funny twist: no.”

Gaster throws an attack at you and you dodge easily, throwing your own back at him.  You’re still weak, but you have a few tricks up your sleeve this time.  He dodges all but one of them, which slides through his form unnoticed.

* * *

_A memory:_

_You attack Gaster with everything you have._

* * *

A bone nearly collides with your side but disappears before you can dodge it.  You look back up at Gaster, who is pretending it didn’t happen.  You hear Chara say something behind you.

* * *

_A memory:_

_“how long were you screaming while he drilled that thing into you?”_

* * *

Your skull hurts.  You reach for it instinctively and step backwards.  Gaster summons another attack.

* * *

_A memory:_

_“you’re trying to fix me?”_

* * *

Suddenly, Gaster freezes in place.  You hear Chara behind you.  “It’s working!  Do the next one!”

You turn to see Frisk messing with the thing Chara had been poking at earlier.  You hear static.

* * *

_A memory:_

_“i regret it!  i regret killing gaster, okay?  it wasn’t right, no matter how horrible a person he was.”_

* * *

“Sans?”

Gaster looks so small now.  He never looked like that before.  The way he looks up at you, crumpled up on the floor, the fear so prevalent in his glowing eyes - you’d never seen them glow before - he almost looks like a monster.  Like a real person.

“it was appropriate, i guess,” you think out loud, watching Chara and Frisk, “for someone with your ego to die in obscurity.”  You look back at Gaster.  “kind of ironic, huh?”

Maybe it’s your imagination, but it looks like he smiles.  “I suppose so.”

“looks like you failed again.”

“It was always like this.  It was all for not h i n g.”

“yeah,” you say, “but, hey.”  You summon a circle of attacks around him.  “at least we got a happy ending out of it.”

* * *

You stumble away from the save point and frisk stays on their knees for a bit, trying to steady their breathing.

“Frisk!”  Toriel catches up and kneels in front of them, holding their shoulder.  “My child, what happened?  What’s wrong?”

“It’s okay now,” Frisk says, almost a whisper, before reaching out to hug her.  Toriel melts into the hug, closing her eyes.  You watch them for a moment before you notice your phone buzzing in your pocket.

You pull it out and answer.  “hello?”

“SANS!  WHERE ARE YOU?”

“oh, hey, pap.  we’re, uh, on our way.  sorry we’re late, heh...”

“WELL, ACTUALLY...”  Papyrus trails off for a second before remembering himself.  “YOU _ARE_ LATE, BUT THAT IS NOT THE REASON I CALLED.”

“it’s not?  what’s up?”

“DID...  DID YOU FEEL THAT, TOO?  JUST NOW.”

“feel what?”

“YOU DIDN’T?”

“i never said that.  but you’re, uh, gonna have to be more specific.”

“IT WAS LIKE... A MEMORY.”

“...but different, right?  more like the feeling that you’re remembering something, with no real memory attached?”

“YES, EXACTLY LIKE THAT!  SO YOU FELT IT, TOO.”

“yeah.  kinda weird, huh?”

“VERY WEIRD.”  Neither of you speak for a bit, and you wonder what caused it to extend to him.  “BUT!” he says, suddenly, “IT IS NO EXCUSE TO BE LATE.”

“right.  don’t worry, bro.  we’re going _tibia_ there as soon as we can.”

Papyrus groans loudly and hangs up.  You head over to Tori and Frisk, who still haven’t stopped hugging.  “we’re gonna be late to the thing,” you tell them, and Toriel nods and picks Frisk up so she can stand without putting them down.  “come on,” you say, holding out a hand, “i know a shortcut.”

* * *

When the meeting is over, you come home to an especially disgruntled-looking Flowey sitting in the front yard.

“oh yeah,” you say, “forgot about you.”

“Clearly.”  Flowey scowls at you.  “You could have at least _warned_ me.  I had to get back here on my own!”

“you could have stayed in the underground.”

“Bite me.”

“Asriel...”  You both turn to watch Frisk - or, you guess, Chara - walk almost timidly up to the flower before kneeling to his height.  “Why are you here?  I didn’t think you would ever leave the underground.”

“I’m your replacement.  Frisk paid me to be their seeing-eye-flower.”

“Flowey, be nice.”

“That wasn’t part of the deal, Frisk.  Besides, it’s not like you’ll need me, anymore.”

Flowey pauses like he’s waiting for Frisk to correct him, but they don’t.

“maybe you should stay anyway.” you interject.

“What?” says Flowey, “Why?”

You shrug.  “why not?  you’re already kinda part of the family.  and besides,” you glance pointedly at Toriel, “i think ‘asriel’ has a little explaining to do.”

“Oh,” says Frisk, looking between the three of you, “did Mom not know about - oh.  Oops.  Sorry.”

“Why don’t we have this conversation indoors,” says Toriel, walking past them to unlock the door.  “I do believe we have some pie left over.”

* * *

Pie makes everything better, is what you’ve decided, just now.  Frisk devours their slice with the vigor of someone who hasn’t eaten in weeks, only forcing themself to slow down when Toriel hands them another.

She takes the explanation of Flowey’s real name with a kind of exhausted acceptance you’d think was impossible if you didn’t know her better.  When he’s done, she suggests a nap.  All of you could use a nap, she says, and the rest of you reluctantly agree.

* * *

That afternoon you dream about a color cube with Xs and Os on each side.  You dream of a bunny rabbit made from pillow fluff and the best marshmallow you’ve ever tasted.  You see hands with holes straight through the middle and a lab coat that spreads dramatically behind the monster wearing it.  You see a face you don’t recognize - a pair of glasses and an eye that never opens.

He looks lost.

You dream of a vast nothingness, a palpable black, a distorted view of reality.  You smell tobacco smoke and turn around to see a figure standing alone, facing away from you.

His head is obscured by the darkness.  His coat is gone.  The inky blackness around him seems to concentrate into his form.  He turns to face you, but he doesn’t see.  He speaks, but you don’t hear.  You reach out to touch him, and his form scatters like wrapping paper in the wind.

You wake up alone and struggle to remember any of it.

* * *

“hey, kid.”

Frisk looks up at you from their game of chess - a hobby they picked up again as soon as Chara came back.  “Hi, Sans.”

“can we talk?”

Frisk moves a piece with their right hand.  “Sure.”

You sit down on the opposite side of the board.  “about what you said in the underground...”

Frisk holds their left hand over a bishop, tapping the top of it lightly before speaking.  “Let me guess.  You want to ask Chara about it?”

“yeah.”

They shrug and move the bishop.  “Alright.”

You watch them to see if you can spot the difference when Chara takes control, but you fail to see the moment when it happens.  Their right hand hovers over the board, but doesn’t make a move.  “So... what exactly did Frisk _say_ in the underground?” they ask.

“...that it wasn’t all you.”

“Oh.”  Chara puts both hands in their lap, wringing them nervously.

“is that true?”

Chara nods.  “Do you honestly think they would lie about that?”

“well, one of you did.”

Chara’s hands go still.  “It wasn’t their fault.  Do you know what would’ve happened if they’d just reset as soon as I stopped?”

“what do you mean?”

“You would have _remembered_.  You would have known right off the bat what they-  what _I_ did.  I know you still get nightmares, but if it isn’t a true reset... everyone remembers it a little.”

“so you’re okay with it?” you ask.  Chara doesn’t answer, instead moving one of their pieces on the chess board.  “why’d you quit?”

“Because it was _you._ ”  They sigh.  “I never wanted to _beat_ you.  I wanted to see how much it would take before you fought me.  I wanted to know what your limit was.  That’s how it started, anyway.”

Their left hand moves to the board, quickly positioning a piece before resting in their lap again.

“I guess I got carried away,” Chara admits.  They avoid eye contact, instead glaring at the board.  “I never said this, but...  I’m sorry.”

“...damn,” you say, holding back a laugh, “i’mma need you to prove you’re really chara again.  i mean.  admitting you were wrong and apologizing?  you gotta _commit_ to this role, frisk.”

They laugh, and you laugh along.  You aren’t sure which one of them takes a captured black pawn and throws it at you, but when you send it back and they catch it out of mid air like it’s nothing - you know it has to be Chara.  “I never did prove it was really me,” they say, placing the pawn on the board.  “Does that count as checkmate?”

“nah, frisk can capture it.”

“Not without putting their king in check though.”

“nope, they still can.”

“How?”

You take the white queen from the captured pile and replace their pawn with it.  “like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (In case it isn't as clear as I thought: Gaster is speaking in wingdings during the parts where the case is proper - its just portrayed differently in this chapter because it's Sans' POV, similar to the way it was in the chapter where he was still alive.)


	15. Because I Forgive You

[Chara]

* * *

Years pass in the blink of an eye, and in time you forget that you were ever more than a part of Frisk.  Now that your mom and the others know, they’ll call you by name now and again, but you and Frisk are both content with using their name for both of you.  You remember Gaster like a bad dream: one you forget more of with each passing day.  Sans surprises you with a question here and there, but he usually pretends it never happened.

The fifth anniversary of the day you and Frisk met comes with little fanfare but for a small birthday celebration (in leu of Frisk’s actual birthday: a closely guarded secret you aren’t sure they actually know).  The two of you agree on a pie instead of the traditional cake, and you later find a few bars of name-brand chocolate on your bed.

A few days after that, Frisk surprises Toriel with a request to visit the city graveyard.

* * *

You read the name on the tombstone out loud and Frisk nods, placing the small handful of golden flowers at its base.  _“Who was she?”_ you ask without speaking, leaving control of your body to Frisk for now.

_“My birth mother.  I don’t actually remember her, but...”_

You almost laugh.  _“You care that much?  Just because you have her genes?”_

Frisk doesn’t think it’s funny at all, and says nothing.

After a few moments, they ask, _“Is there someone you want to visit?”_

 _“I never told you about my past for a reason,”_ you reply, and though Frisk picks up on the bitterness in your tone, they don’t hesitate to push the issue.

_“Didn’t you care about ANYONE?  I find that hard to believe, even given how much you claim to have hated humanity.”_

Without really thinking, you pull your knife from your waist and twirl it around in your hand.  _“I never told you, did I?”_

_“Told me what?”_

You hesitate for a long moment before walking away from Frisk’s birth mother’s grave.  _“Let’s see, my birth parents should be around here somewhere.”_

* * *

You find them eventually, and honestly it wasn’t worth the hassle of looking but Frisk was too stubborn to let you give up.  They read the names to themself and wait for you to speak.

 _“Do you want to know how they died?”_ you ask.

_“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t.”_

_“A simple ‘yes’ would have sufficed.”_   You pull the knife out and stare at it again.  _“They were murdered.”_

_“...With that knife?”_

_“Yup.”_

_“How did you get it, then?”_

You smile, as wide and creepy as you can, and try to stop your true feelings from bleeding over to Frisk.  _“I was the one who killed them.”_

* * *

For days, Frisk tries to get you to talk about it.  Why did you do it?  What did they do?  Is that why you climbed Mt. Ebott? The questions never stop, but you don’t answer a single one.

It bothers you , more than you’ll admit, how many of them you’ve forgotten the answers to.

One day Sans walks in on you while Frisk is staring at your knife.  He forgets whatever he was going to say and sits down next to you.  “you alright, kid?”

Frisk nods, but doesn’t look up at him.

“thinking about the other timeline?”

Frisk shakes their head, and Sans leans back, surprised.

“What is it, then?”

Frisk doesn’t answer, so you do it for them.  “I told Frisk about the, uh,” You swallow nervously. “The reason I climbed Mt. Ebott.”

“ah.”  Sans settles into his spot next to you but doesn’t say anything else.

“You knew?” asks Frisk.

“yeah.”

You can tell they have more questions, but they leave it at that for now.  You guess they don’t expect to get any answers out of Sans, either.

You almost feel bad for their nosy ass.

“you know, chara,” says Sans after a little while, “you’re kind of a hypocrite.”

“How come?”

“well, it took you this long to tell Frisk about your past, but as soon as you figured mine was interesting you’d do anything to find out what it was.”

“Hey, I told you about mine, didn’t I?”

“then why was it different with frisk?”

You don’t know how to respond, so you retreat a little and Frisk looks away from Sans.

“Chara,” they say, out loud, “it’s okay.  You don’t have to answer that.”

 _“I think I already know,”_ they add, to only you.

* * *

“Checkmate!” you proclaim excitedly, out loud.  Frisk smiles at the board and laughs as they start reseting it.

 _“Great,”_ they think, _“I can finally stop going easy on you.”_

* * *

“Hey, Frisk.”  You look up to see Amanda, sitting across from you with an absurd smile on her face.  “Guess what?”

“What?” says Frisk.

“Undyne says I’m ready to try fighting you again.  Those five dollars are mine _yet_.”

You let out a laugh.  “Your friend _still_ hasn’t collected on it?”

Amanda crosses her arms.  “The deal was that I could beat you, not that I could beat you right away.”  She stands up and grabs Frisk’s hand, pulling them into a standing position.  “Come on!  You’re not busy right now.”

“Actually,” Frisk hazards a glance back at their unfinished homework while Amanda interrupts.

“It can wait.”

* * *

“Alright!”  Undyne stands between you and Amanda, and you equip the magically padded knife you’d used against Sans.  “First to land a blow wins.  I’m expecting a good, clean fight here.”

Amanda nods and starts attacking on her signal.  Frisk dodges easily, but she remains unfazed.  You twirl the knife in your right hand.  _“So,”_ you ask Frisk, _“We fighting back this time or what?”_

Frisk settles into the back of your mind, grinning internally.  _“Go ahead.”_

* * *

_“I can’t believe she managed to hit you.”_ You and Frisk pant, leaning on your knees, as Amanda runs cheering to her friends.  (Were they on the sidelines this whole time?  You hadn’t noticed them.)

_“Shut up, I’m out of practice.  Besides, you usually aim better than that.”_

_“She’s gotten better,”_ you shrug, _“Do you want to load our save?”_

Frisk looks back up at Amanda, gleefully collecting her five dollars, and shakes their head.  _“I think we should let her have this.”_

* * *

On the anniversary of the day you fell, Frisk returns to the underground and the two of you wander a bit.  Your old house still holds that eerie familiarity, but you ignore most of your old stuff.  Asriel sticks out of your backpack but is mostly silent.

“Do you want to keep this?” you ask him, holding an old drawing from back when you were alive.

“No.  The answer to that question is always going to be no, Chara.”

You shrug.  “I kinda liked this one.”

Asriel says nothing.  You put the drawing back.  After looking around a bit more, you head farther into the underground.

The underground is quieter than it should be.  You remember the hundreds of people going about their daily lives, the laughter, the smells...

You walk through waterfall and listen to the echo flowers.  Every now an then, monsters still make wishes here.

“I wish my sister could figure out how to cook real food.”

“I wish for a playstation on my birthday!”

“I wish Mom could come home from her work trip soon.”

You can’t help but smile.  You remember when these flowers all said the same thing.

You keep going, and see a few monsters here and there.  Snowdin is mostly empty, but Gyftrot is still there, and the Snowed Inn, oddly enough, is still running right where it was before.

You pay the snowman a visit, and Frisk digs their snowball out of their pocket to show them.  They seem happy.

When you reach your old house in the ruins, Frisk heads all the way down the hallway out of habit and looks in the mirror.  You smile at your reflection and speak without speaking, so only Frisk can hear you.

_“It’s us.”_

 

* * *

 

**The end.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that concludes this monster of a story! thanks so much for reading!
> 
> (also, as of posting this, i have 100 kudos on this fic. 100 separate people individually decided to approve of my work publicly on the internet. i am so freaking excited)  
> (thank you also for the kind and supportive comments! you guys are awesome)


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